Max Headroom - In the Name of Lynch
by ElegantButler
Summary: 24 Years after Bryce Lynch has been placed in cryostasis on the verge of death, Bryce's offspring, now adults and living with their adoptive parents, are being drawn together on the eve of a major network war.
1. Last Night With Her Daughter

In The Name of Lynch

-Prologue-

Jenny Wilcox sat at the main computer in Network 23's Research & Development department. Looking up from the project she was working on, she saw the snow drifting down outside the narrow window that let in the room's only external lighting. The sky, at near midnight, was as white as the thin blanket of early November snow that covered the street thirteen stories down.

It had been just over a year since Network 23 had lost Bryce Lynch to a virulent plague that had started in the Fringes. A plague which Bryce could've easily avoided if the truth about it had been told from the beginning by Network 23's former pet politician, Simon Peller.

It had also been about five weeks since the birth of her and Bryce's daughter, Janine. A daughter whom Jenny loved quite dearly.

The child had been created at Ovu-Vat, the genetics lab where the Gro-Bags facility was located.

Ovu-Vat had been originally started as a fertility clinic. But an idea that they owed their clients the best babies they could arrange quickly transformed them into a genetics facility which could go as far as making sure that a baby would be both smart and good looking.

Janine was not perfect, Jenny had requested that she not be a cookie-cutter kid. The IQ predictor indicated that she would be at least as smart as her father. But Jenny would not permit them to introduce the genetic codes that would regulate her emotional state.

It was a decision that Jenny sometimes regretted when little Janine wailed at the top of her lungs for a feeding or a changing in the wee hours of the morning.

Another decision Jenny was regretting was the one to give little Janine up for adoption. She had the funds and means to care for the child. But for the past week, Network 66 had been making serious threats, trying to lay claim to the child.

It was their contention that since Jenny had broken her contract with them prematurely, that they had the rights to all her assets, including her baby.

Jenny knew that the truth was that her former boss, Ned Grossberg. wanted to get a hold of the baby in order to re-launch his baby genius TV program. She knew he wanted custody of Janine so that he wouldn't have to pay her a salary on behalf of the infant.

She had decided not to meet the parents, not wishing to know anything about them, lest Grossberg try to force their location out of her one day.

It was this reason that she was up past midnight, watching her baby sleep for what was to be the last time.


	2. Ai Xing's Choice

In The Name of Lynch

-Chapter 01: Ai Xing's Choice -

Ped Xing, the Chairman of the Board at the Zik Zak Megacorporation, wiped his eyes as he fixed the traditional kimono he had donned for what was to be a very special occasion..

A stoic man in his late 80s, only his daughter, Ai Xing, had ever been able to bring him to tears, it had happened the first time he'd held her. When her first word was "to-san", it had happened again. And again the first time she'd walked, when she'd played a bird at a school play about extinct animals; when she'd been accepted at the Academy of Computer Sciences in London, England at the age of ten; and when she'd become one of Zik Zak's youngest employees at the age of twelve on her own merit, and not just by riding on her father's coattails.

Paying close attention to the fine details of Zik Zak's commitment to both excellence and their customers, young Ai had quickly rising through the ranks, though she often turned down quick promotions in favor of staying in one area of expertise in order to learn more about that aspect of the company.

It was this attention to detail that made Ped Xing certain that she would one day take his place in the corporate Chair.

Ai was twenty four now, and she had just made the biggest decision of her life. A decision that had stunned Ped Xing nearly as much as the rest of the Board at Zik Zak.

For several months, she had attended conferences in both London and New Tokyo, conferences involving Zik Zak's continuing association with Network 23.

"There's just something about this place," Ai had said the day when she had first seen Network 23's skyscraper. "It's different from the other big network buildings. Just like a mother tiger protecting her cubs."

"An interesting way of putting it," said a man from behind her.

When Ai had turned, she had seen that his face had been obscured by a vidicam.

"Jack Murray, Network 23," the man had said, lowering his camera and extending a hand automatically.

Having been raised in New Tokyo, she bowed instead.

Withdrawing his hand, Jack also bowed.

"I didn't expect you to be from New Tokyo," he apologized. "I thought you might be from the one of Zik Zak's American offices."

"Your apology is accept, Mr. Murray," Ai had told him.

"I didn't catch your name," Jack had then said as he'd switched his hold on his vidicam which he'd put on standby.

Part of being professional was to know when not to act professional, and Ai Xing could sense that now was one of those times.

"I didn't throw it," she said simply.

Jack Murray smiled. This woman had her own unique style, both charming and irreverent. He could see why Zik Zak had hired her.

"My name is Ai Xing," she had gone on to tell him. "Daughter of Ped Xing. And no, my father didn't get me the job, though being proud of him was my reason for going to work for Zik Zak."

Jack Murray had been present as a reporter for the majority of the conferences she had attended, but it had been in the last three that he had taken her out to dinner, the first time as an interviewee, and afterward for

the purpose of dating her.

It had been at a Network 23 sponsored Scumball game a week ago, during the intermission, that things had come to a head.

"The Druids are really taking a pounding, aren't they?" she'd said to him.

"Indeed. My father says they haven't had a good team since Mark Mason left in 2010," Jack had replied, "Hey, not to change the subject, but if you're not busy this coming Saturday, I thought we could either go see Blank Mink perform or get married. Up to you which."

Ai had stared at him in amazement at the unexpected and certainly unusual proposal, searching his eyes to see if he had been serious or indeed if he'd realized what he'd said to her.

When it had been clear that he had, she smiled and replied. "I think I can squeeze in a wedding."

Ped Xing had laughed when she had told him about the way Jack had proposed to her, though he had become very serious when she had told him that she planned to quit Zik Zak after she married.

"Mom has always been very happy staying at home and looking after me," she told explained in the long run. "I have done well working by your side, and I have been happy doing so. But now it is time for me to be happy in the way that mom is."

A knock on the door brought him back to the present. He walked to the door and opened it to find Murray, Network 23's top producer and father of Jack Murray, standing outside holding a medium sized box.

"In my family," Murray explained, "it has always been customary for the father of the groom to offer a token to the father of the bride."

Ped Xing laughed. "Your gift is graciously accepted," he opened the gift and found a roughly sculpted hand-made statuette of a sparrow within. "Made by a Blank child?"

Murray nodded, nervously.

"It is kind of you to go out of your way to find me a gift that isn't simply giving me back one of my own products," Ped Xing smiled. "Come. I believe the wedding is about to begin."


	3. San San Kudo

In The Name of Lynch

-Chapter 03: San San Kudo-

Kiyone Fujito pulled Ai Xing's hair back into a small cap while Kiyone's sister, Yuki, made certain that the ceremonial bridal wig was in excellent condition.

The wig looked almost exactly like the Xing family's traditional bridal wig which had been passed from mother to daughter for many generations. The one difference the hair color, which has the same color as Ai's own hair.

The wedding was not to be a completely traditional Japanese wedding as the groom was of British descent and it was to take place in London, but Ai had insisted on two things; that she be dressed in a traditional shiromuku and that the vows be followed by the traditional Shinto sake ceremony.

Kei Xing, Ai's mother, stepped into the room. She was dressed in the traditional garments worn by a Japanese mother of the bride and had a tearful smile on her face.

"I have so many things I wanted to tell you, that I waited for this day to tell you. But now that the day has come, I'm not sure if I should say what I have held onto for so long."

"If it's important, then you should not delay," Ai told her. "No matter how much you think it might hurt. For the happiness of this day will get me through any miserable thought."

Kei smiled, sadly. "Your father and I have always loved you, Ai. And we've always been proud of you."

"You can skip the adoption announcement, okaachan," Ai told her. "I figured that out when I was five."

"You were born here in London," Kei told her daughter, "your true father's name was Bryce Lynch. He used to work at Network 23. Ask your future father-in-law about him after the wedding."

"How could you know his name if it was a closed adoption?" Ai asked, politely.

"It was only closed on the mother's side."

"Mother's side? What about Bryce's side? Or didn't he care enough to be involved in the matter?"

A knock on the door brought the matter to an abrupt halt, bringing Ai's mind back to the wedding at hand. She set aside her agitation and fixed a smile onto her face, though a touch of sadness could now be seen lurking just behind the joy in her eyes.

As Jack had his background at Network 23, it had been agreed that the ceremony would take place in the Network's Vu Age Church and be held by it's priestess, Vanna Carter.

Vanna herself had been the one to knock on the door of the bride's dressing room. She had arrived moments earlier, but had been intrigued by the conversation she had overheard and had paused to listen.

"You're a priest," she had chastised herself. Following it immediately by "I'm also a woman."

She wondered if she should mention what she'd heard to her husband when she got home that night. Bryce had been Edison's best friend before the plague had forced the brilliant teenager into permanent cryosleep and his mind into the realms of Artificial Intelligence. Jack stood at the altar of the Vu-Age Church. The altar was ringed with white, blue, and yellow flowers; roses, mums, and baby's breath. Atop it stood three sake cups piled one atop the other, large, medium and small from bottom to top along with a traditional pot of sake, ready for the San San Kudo ceremony that would follow the Western-style vows.

Looking out at his guests, he could see his father smiling up at him. Among other guests present were Edison Carter, Theora Stephens and her husband Ted, Ms. Lauren who was currently Head of Network 23, Sylvia Jones who was Jack's controller and Theora's niece.

Looking above them, at the two monitors that overlooked the room, Jack saw that Max Headroom and Cat 9, the network's two artificial intelligences, had also attended. Max was dressed in a casual tan top with a white carnation in the lapel while Cat 9 wore an Alice blue top with a sprig of lavender.

As the music began, all eyes turned to Ai Xing.

Over her shiromuku she wore an ornate red and gold uchikake, while her wig was covered by a white tsunokakushi.

Ai glided down the aisle, accompanied by her mother and father and two bridesmaids, all of whom wore traditional Japanese clothing. Her eyes, glittering with the unshed tears of joy, were only on Jack, just as his were only on her.

It seemed like a wonderful dream to Ai Xing. The vows heard through a haze of happiness as she was so focused on the man she was marrying. Her own voice seemed more melodious to her, as though joy had turned simple words to a song that needed no accompaniment save that of the voice of her groom.

After they had both exchanged rings, Ai and Jack took three sips of sake, each and apiece, from the three cups from top to bottom. To Ai, who was not a stranger to sake as it had been served at many of Zik Zak's more formal functions, it seemed as though the finest rice had been used to make what had been poured into the wedding cups. As she took her last sip, she thought she heard a young voice breathing a sigh of contentment. Though she kept her head low, as was traditional for the San San Kudo, her eyes looked briefly up at the screen which held the younger of the two intelligences and almost dropped the sake cup.

Cat 9 had her eyes.


	4. The Meeting of the Minds

In The Name of Lynch

-Chapter 04 Meeting of the Minds-

"She looks a little like Jenny," Cat 9 told Max as they watched Ai dance with Jack. "Something about her face."

"Your eyes, though," Max replied. "I think you should introduce yourself."

"It'll be very weird for her to know that she has a father who is a perpetual teenager," Cat 9 said, slowly shaking his head in mild amusement.

"True. True. But at least you'll be able to sympathize with your grandkids when they're that age."

"A sixteen year old grandfather," Cat 9 chuckled.

"And great-grandfather. And great-great-grandfather, and great..." Max intoned.

"And on and on..." Cat 9 cut him off. "I think..."

"Mrs. Murray," the bartender called out over the music. The traditional dances were over now and the guests were simply enjoying themselves on the dance floor.

Jack and Ai were dancing together at this point, so they worked their way over to the bar.

"Sorry to interrupt such a nice dance, ma'am," the bartender apologized, "but you have a phone call from a lady who insists upon speaking to you."

"I'd better see who it is," Ai told Jack. As she took the handset, a woman appeared on the screen above the bar.

Several of the guests stopped dancing and looked at her. Some wondered who she was, others understood the significance of the call.

"Mrs. Ai Murray," the woman said, simply, "it is time for you to understand who you really are and where you come from. Come to Research & Development. Max Headroom will guide you."

"I will not come without my husband," Ai said, sternly.

"He is more than welcome to accompany you," the woman agreed. "As the children this will one day affect will be his also."

Quietly, Ai and Jack stepped into the hallway. The door to the cafeteria had just clicked shut behind them when the doors to one of the lifts slid open. Stepping inside, Jack automatically reached out for the buttons.

"No need," Max's voice said from the speakers. "I'll do it."

Ai looked at her husband as the lift began to ascend. It slowed at the twelfth floor, but did not stop until a moment later.

"Level 13!" Max called out cheerfully. "Men's Wear, Women's fashions, kitchen accessories and frozen teenagers."

In the Research & Development department at the end of the hall, Jenny heard Max and smirked, despite the butterflies in her stomach. At the age of forty-one, she was going to finally see the girl who had left a hole in her heart so many years ago.

Ai and Jack were soon at the door to the lab. It slid open to grant them access and they walked past the threshold.

A small crib stood in the corner, looking a bit out of place in a network television research lab.

Ai walked over to it, running her hand over the smooth antique wooden frame.

"You once slept in that crib," Jenny said, stepping up behind her. "For the first five weeks of your life that was your bed."

"What happened?" Ai asked, "And who is Cat 9?"

"I'll answer the last question first," Jenny told her, "with an introduction. Ai Murray," she said, directing the new bride's attention to the cryotube near the main computer, "this is Bryce Lynch."

"I knew I was adopted when I was little," Ai said. "The fact that I don't look Japanese was a dead giveaway. I always had fantasies about what if I met my parents one day. I was raised well, and love those who brought me up. But I guess all those who know about their adoptions are naturally curious about their birth parents. I must admit, however, that I never expected the one who sired me to be so young."

"Sired," Cat 9 huffed from above the cryotube. "And I've just gone from Network 23's head of Research and Development to a stud on a horse farm."

"I did not mean to offend," Ai apologized quickly. "However, you must admit there is more to being a farm than just leaving behind a little sperm."

"I have never left behind a little sperm!" Cat 9 said, sounding scandalized.

"You were created at Ovu-Vat from a DNA samples taken from Bryce and myself," Jenny explained. "You and your siblings were grown in an artificial womb called a Gro-Bag. They were outlawed five years after you were born."

"Siblings?" Ai asked.

"Six fetuses were created. Four survived. You, who are the only child whose DNA I carry, twin boys who carry the DNA of Theora Stephens, then Jones, and a girl who is the daughter of two fathers, Bryce Lynch and Edison Carter."

"And the two that did not survive?"

"A son of Theora who was stillborn, and your twin sister. In truth your survival was nothing short of miraculous. Had the flaw in your gro-bag been found ten minutes later, neither of you would've lived."

"Where can I find them?" Ai asked, turning to Cat 9. "You're linked to the system. You must know!"

"I don't have as many details as you might think," Cat 9 told her. "I can tell you where they were taken, but what their names became or where they are exactly... that I don't know."

"Tell us what you do know," Jack said, after a silent few minutes.

"My daughter within whose veins runs the blood of Edison Carter is somewhere in Scotland. Those of Theora's lineage are in Tasmania and New Zealand. More than that, I do not know."

"Well, that leaves me only seventy five million people to comb through. Should be a breeze."

"Don't give up," Jack told her. "It's just a matter of locating the paperwork."

"Trouble is," Jenny told them, "the paperwork was done by hand rather than machine. We didn't want Network 66 to trace any of you."

"Network 66?" Ai inquired.

"They wanted to create a Baby Geniuses show about a year before you were born. They'd had a few children they'd taken from Ovu-Vat and Grossberg had even gone as far as pulling Bryce away from his job here at Network 23."

"They wanted me to host the show," Cat 9 explained. "As Bryce, I mean."

"They also, though they didn't tell him, wormed in a little additional clause in the contract he was to sign that would've given them genetic rights."

"What?" Cat 9 asked.

"Essentially, it would've given them permission to take a sperm sample by any means necessary and..."

"A contract for molestation?" Ai scrunched up her face at this. "Disgusting. I can see why you all went to so much pains to hide us from the creep. "And Bryce never caught on?"

"Looks to me like even his AI is having trouble with the concept," Jenny half-smiled. "Bryce was very brilliant with computers, but as he spent so much time with them and so little of it with people, he wasn't always so brilliant when it came to human sneakiness."

"One might take that as a compliment as it suggests that he himself had no deception in his heart," Ai decided.

Cat 9 smiled at his daughter's favorable statement. "Thank you, my child."

"You're perpetually sixteen and you're calling me that?" Ai laughed.

"Perhaps it is time for you both to return to your guests," Jenny suggested. "They must be wondering where you are by now."

"It was good to meet you both," Ai told her, smiling sadly. "I want you both to think of yourselves as a part of my life from this moment on. And mother..."

Jenny raised an eyebrow.

"... you're coming with us. You belong there, too."


	5. Not All Island Girls Live in the Tropics

In The Name of Lynch

-Chapter 05: Not All Island Girls Live in the Tropics-

In New Deerness, which had been built upon the ruins of the civil parish of Deerness, Charlotte Ballantyne clung to the bars that confined her. Stuck in semi-enclosed space for longer than she cared to be, she cried out for anyone that might hear her. Small as she was, she had a powerful voice and it wouldn't be long before it was heard.

On the floor below, Claire was on the vu-phone with her older cousin Magnus when she heard the cry.

"Hold on," she told him as she got to her feet. "Sounds like the wee one's up. I'll just be a moment." she left the room, returning a few minutes later with Charlotte and a couple of toys.

Claire set her seventeen-month-old daughter on the floor with a doll and a little plush-and-velcro train set, then set herself down on the sofa.

"She's really growing fast," Magnus observed.

"Yeah," Claire smiled, sadly. "it's a shame her da isn't around to see it." She reached over to the box of tissues on the end table and pulled one out. "I know I shouldn't get this upset about it now. It's been five months since..."

"Since Sigund's death?" Magnus asked. "Of course you should still get upset. You loved that man, Claire. And he loved you. We all had high hopes of the two of you having a big family like your aunt Mariel."

"And now Charlotte is the only child I'll ever have," Claire said, looking at her daughter with protective affection.

"You might marry again some day," Magnus said, reassuringly. "It's hard to believe right now, I know. Your heart hurts and the idea of falling in love again and opening yourself up to feeling that hurt again is terrifying. But when it happens, you'll forget that fear, trust me."

"I can't do that," Claire shook her head. "I can't betray the memory of..."

Little Charlotte looked up at her mom, whose face looked a little wet. She was smart enough to know that when someone's face was wet you were supposed to hug them, so she toddled over to her and put both arms around her leg.

"Loving someone new is not betraying those have departed," Magnus told Claire as he watched her pick up her daughter. "In life, Sig wanted nothing more than to see you smile; to know that you were happy. He'd want that now, also. Take whatever time you need to grieve, little cousin, but don't take your whole life. Think of little Charlotte. It'd be nice for her to have a little brother or sister to play with."

"I was thinking of adopting once she's a little older," Charlotte said, looking down into her daughter's face. "I was adopted and it would be nice of me to return the favor some day."

Magnus smiled. "I remember the day your mum brought you home from London. She was all smiles and tears. "I may have only been six, but a look of joy like that stays in your memory forever, no matter how old you are."

"I knew I was a foreign adoption, but I never knew where from," Claire said, turning part of her attention back to the vu-phone screen. "London? How did you know she went there?"

Magnus held up a little Beefeater Bear. "Your mum brought this back over for me from one of the antique shops," he told her. "I wish I could tell you more, but grownups don't talk much about things like that to six year olds. Not even when they're boys."

"It's okay," Claire said, tickling Charlotte's tummy and smiling as the child laughed with delight.


	6. A Bustling Town That Almost Wasn't

In The Name of Lynch

-Chapter 06: A Busy City That Nearly Wasn't-

The bustling streets of Waddamana on the isle of Tasmania would've been a shock to that city's early population. Once it had been all but a ghost town with a population of five after a start of a hundred residents during a hydro-electric boom in the 1900s which had petered off until only the most stubborn or the most sentimental remained.

Then, in 1998, as the Third World War threatened the mainland of Australia and that of New Zealand, the surrounding islands saw an influx of families who sought to remove themselves and their children from the harsh climes of the great conflict.

Not wanting to overburden their already crowded cities, the people of Tasmania, Australia elected the little town of Waddamana and generous portion of the surrounding land to be the site where the newcomers could set up.

They had come with trailers and tents. Old fashioned public dunnies had been set up for the first few months while homes were being built and plumbing was being established. In those days, the responsibility of dunny cleaning fell to those women who were too old for childbirth, but not yet convalescing.

Soon, the trailers and tents gave way to one and two family homes. Shops and restaurants soon followed.

As those who had welcomed them came to satisfy their curiosity, their businesses grew and the town flourished until it became a bustling city.

Twenty years later, a sky-cleaner squad had been established by the RAF. They had seeded the air with a chemical spray which absorbed the radiation and made the affected areas in New Zealand and Australia livable again.

In the following year, many families divided up into those members who chose to stay in their childhood home of Waddamana and those who longed to return to their own childhood homes.

Oliver Burgess had been adopted by one of those families who had opted to stay. His father, Caleb, worked in the local Zlin diner while his mother Eveleigh spent her time as a volunteer with the local Blanks, teaching them how to mend clothing and re-sole shoes.

Although he was now a grown working man himself, Oliver still spent his weekends helping his Aunt Sadie who still ran the dairy farm just outside the town that had been started by her late husband Esmond.

As he tightened the bolts on the milking machine, he heard the rumble of thunder off in the distance. Returning the wrench to his tool belt, he made his way to the generator room to make sure that all was well. A bad storm could mean a power outage, and that could mean very bad news for a dairy farm. Cows did not produce 'on demand' like some people might believe. Not on Sadie's farm anyhow.

Sadie spotted him as she was leaving one of the milking barns. "Come on into the main house when you're done there!" she called. "Looks like we're going to have a heck of a storm!"

"I will," Oliver had called back as he had reached the generator room and went inside.

It had been fortunate that he'd done so, as the generator needed to be oiled and both the spark plug and recoil starter needed to be replaced. Fortunately, his uncle had taught his aunt the value of keeping spares around. She had done her late husband proud, stocking spares of every part that generator needed, even those the manufacturer claimed would last even longer than she would.

Making the necessary repairs took several minutes. Once they were completed, he raced the storm clouds to the main house, missing his mark by a grand total of five yards as they opened up and soaked him quite thoroughly.

"I love racing the clouds," he laughed, as his aunt handed him a towel to dry his hair and face with."

"We can both see who won this time," Sadie laughed. "Well, go on and your room and change up. Supper will hold long enough for you to put on dry things. And hang your wets over the shower to dry."

"Yes, Aunt Sadie," Oliver answered as he headed off into the adjoining hallway where the bedrooms and bathroom were located.

Returning a moment later, freshly dried and combed, he helped his aunt set the table and bring the food out from the kitchen.

"You ever wonder about your birth parents?" she asked him as she buttered a piece of homemade bread.

"Sometimes," Oliver admitted. "My father's name was Brian wasn't it?"

"Bryce," Sadie corrected him. "But you were close. Never learned his last name. We only knew his first because your mother's friend knew someone who knew a little of the story."

"What story?" Oliver asked.

"Sorry, can't say," Sadie apologized. "Too convoluted for an old lady like me to make sense of. All I caught was that his name was Bryce and he lived in London. That and that he was young when you were born. My guess is that this Bryce and his girlfriend got a little carried away and that she ended up in trouble. They must've really cared about you, though, to do right by you and make sure you had a good family to raise you when they were probably both still in school or maybe just too poor."

Oliver decided to drop the subject for now. It wasn't enough information to do anything with, and the stew that his aunt had made would not taste as good cold.

One day, however, he would seek out Bryce and find out his side of the story.


	7. Honeymoon in Tasmania

In The Name of Lynch

-Honeymoon in Tasmania-

Just beyond Sadie's farm near Waddamana there was a small campground called Fish and Flowers

Popular with both anglers and honeymooners circled Lake Arthur with room for tents in one area and trailer hookups in another. Another area still offered quaint cabins with modest kitchens and sleeping accommodations.

Ai Murray woke in one of these cabins alongside her still-sleeping husband Jack. Jack had selected Tasmania for their honeymoon as it was one of the few places Ai had not yet been to.

As a former employee of Zik Zak, Ai had traveled extensively. But New Zealand, Australia, and the rest of the area that surrounded them including the Fiji Islands were in the advertising zone covered by Zik Zak's rival, Zlin, and while she had worked for Zik Zak she had not been able to travel there.

Now that she was retired, no such restrictions existed for her. She was free to visit any city, state, or country she wished.

She planned to visit Waddamana that afternoon to do a bit of shopping, but for the morning the two of them were planning to take a hike around the lake before the weather got too warm.

She lie there for a moment, relishing the feel of his arm around her. Then she stood up and went into the bathroom, pausing for a moment to collect her clothes.

By the time she had showered and dressed, Jack was awake and brewing a fresh pot of coffee on the stove.

"Got a preference for our first breakfast together?" he asked, holding up a box of donuts with a smile. "We've got jelly, chocolate, or glazed."

"Which has the fewest calories?" Ai asked.

"The jelly, dearest," Jack told her. "Actually it has the most, but eighty percent of it is in the powdered sugar coating and the jelly. And, as you know, those almost never make it to the stomach. Ask anyone who's ever worn a tuxedo while eating one."

"I'll have two then," Ai laughed, taking her first as she down at the little table with him.

"I've been reading up on Waddamana," Jack said. He took a sip of coffee. "It used to be a ghost town way back when."

"After the hydro electric fad petered out in the late nineteen hundreds," Ai remembered. "We studied it in world history. It came back to life after the Last War, when it was filled with people who came from the Australian mainland and from New Zealand. Those from the mainland came from all over; Bundaberg, Perth, Alice Springs..."

"Well, I didn't come here for a history lesson," Jack grinned, kissing her. "Though I do think I need to brush up on my sex ed."

"As tempting as that sounds," Ai smiled, warmly, "we signed up to join the hike this morning and that starts in fifteen minutes. So I'll take a rain check."

Jack knelt by the bed.

"Lose something?" Ai asked.

"No, I'm praying for rain." Jack said, looking over his shoulder with a wolfish grin.

"Oh, you!" Ai laughed in delight as she took up a pillow and gave him a playful swat.

The pillow fight escalated until they were both wrestling playfully on the bed, sharing kisses, touches, and words of love.

Needless to say, they never did make the hike that morning.

In the afternoon, freshly re-showered and wearing the clothes they'd brought to wear in town, Ai and Jack caught one of the camp site's regular transits into town. They stopped in at the local diner for lunch.

"What's that shop across the street?" Ai asked the waiter as he brought their check.

"That's not a shop, it's a post office," Caleb told her. "In the old days, there were men and women who carried packages from one city or town to another. And it was done all at once, so the packages of each town were all placed in the same truck and delivered to each house one at a time."

"That must've been chaotic," Jack said. "They must've lost a lot of things people were trying to send."

"We keep that one open for the tourists," Caleb explained. "We don't send things out, of course. No one to receive them on the other end. But you can buy old fashioned postcards there and get them stamped with the town's old postal seal for a souvenir."

"That sounds like a wonderful idea," Ai laughed.

"Okay, we'll do that after breakfast," Jack agreed.


	8. A Possibility of War

In The Name of Lynch

-A Possibility of War-

Jenny was watching the main TV screen in the Network 23 Research Lab. It was her day off. After a long week of working out ways for Network 23 to hold onto the top place in the ratings war, she needed a break.

"Things are really heating up in the ratings war," she said, to nobody in particular.

"Kilkenny." said a voice that was young. Perpetually young.

"Kill who?" Jenny asked, wondering who Kenny was.

"I mean," said Cat9 as he appeared on the screen that she'd been watching, "the Two Cats of Kilkenny. It's an old nursery rhyme my mother taught me when I was a child."

"I though you had dumped your old superfluous data," Jenny said, cocking her head in quaint amusement.

"No data is ever truly purged from the human brain, Jenny. It merely becomes inaccessible to the conscious mind. I have access the id, ego, and superego."

"What about these two cats you mentioned?" Jenny asked him.

"When I was four, Abigail Lynch, my mother... well Bryce's mother... so technically mine... she used to say the same nursery rhyme each night. I think she wanted to warn Bryce, or me a it were, about the consequences of war or obsessive competition."

"What does that have to do with cats."

"The old rhyme goes like this:

There once were two cats of Kilkenny

Who each thought "There's one cat too many"

So they fought and they fit

And they clawed and they bit

'Til excepting their nails

And the tips of their tails

Instead of two cats there weren't any."

Jenny mulled this over in her mind.

"You're talking about the ratings war, aren't you? Network 23 and Network 66."

"The danger of it escalating into a shooting war, not just between the networks but between the viewers as well grows stronger every day, Jenny."

"What can I do?' Jenny wanted to know. "My parents are old, but still alive. I don't want them to die because somebody doesn't like one of our shows!"

"There is always a way to stop a war. Jenny, gather my children and those of our alumni whom you can."

"Then what?" Jenny wanted to know.

"When everyone is together, I will let you know what to do next. We already know where Ai Murray and her new husband are. Seek them out first and get them back here. But tell them before they return to seek out Ai's brother. I've gone through the visual records of his adoption day and all I know is that he was adopted by a man in Tasmania by the name of Caleb." Cat9 told her. "Good luck, Jenny."

Jenny blew a kiss to the image as it faded from her screen and sat through the ensuing commercial. It would be just reaching dawn in Tasmania and she wasn't really all that keen on interrupting her daughter's honeymoon at this time of day.

Three words flashed boldly on her screen:

WAR

IS

COMING

"Okay, I understand!" Jenny said in exasperation. She went over to the vu-phone and tapped in the number at the cabin where Ai and Jack were staying.

Ai Murray quickly hurried over to the vu-phone, praying that at least her husband would not have to be woken up at four in the morning.

A yawn behind her told her she was too late.

"Go back to bed," she apologized as she sat down at the screen and pressed the button to accept the call.

"It's Jenny. Mom," she said.

"Tell her that,"

"I know it's four in the morning where you are," Jenny said, "but your father insisted upon me calling you."

"I'll make coffee," Jack said, kissing the top of this wife's head and then walking into the kitchen area.

"Why would my father call you instead of me directly?" Ai asked through a yawn she was unable to stifle.

"I mean Cat9, or Bryce. Not Ped Xing."

"Oh," Ai smiled. "Sorry. I had a rather nice evening last night and I'm a bit foggy this morning. So what did he want?"

"He wants me to get all of his descendants together," Jenny told her. "Cat9's been studying the past and current social algorithms, as Bryce would put it. He says he thinks the ratings war between Network 23 and Network 66 could escalate into actual physical violence."

"We'll be back in a couple of days," Ai told Jenny.

"That is fine," Jenny replied. "You can use those two days to track down your brother."

"What's his name?" Jack asked, handing Ai the cup of coffee he had just brought to her.

"I don't know. I only know that his father's name is Caleb. Good luck."


	9. A Helpful Walk

In The Name of Lynch

-Chapter 09: A Helpful Walk-

As Jack Murray poured coffee for himself and his wife, he hummed the jingle for the Zlin Coffee Pot .

"We know anything about your brother other than the fact that his adoptive father is named Caleb?" he asked as he added sugar to his own cup.

Ai took her cup and added a drop of flavored creamer. "Not really. You know, that guy at the diner was called Caleb. Think it might be him?"

"Doubt it," Jack decided. "Too coincidental."

He seemed thoughful as he sipped his coffee. "On the other hand, its not impossible. And it wouldn't hurt to ask. But what would we say? It's be a bit tacky to just blurt it out, don't you think?"

"Normally I'd say yes. But it feels like we've got to get this family reunion set up as quickly as possible. There's no time for pussyfooting."

"Well, why don't we go to the diner for lunch, then," Jack suggested. "We can ask about it then."

Ai smiled. "In the meantime, we can look about town and see about getting a few souvenirs. I need a new charm for my keychain."

"Your dad, Ped Xing I mean, won't be too pleased when he sees it. Most of the stuff around here is made by Zlin."

"I know, Ai smiled. "But that can't be helped. This place is Zlin territory."

After they'd washed their coffee cups and put them in the strainer to dry, Ai and Jack Murray locked up their vacation cabin and headed into town.

A few of the shops weren't open yet, so they walked further on until they reached the area where most of the houses were located.

After being in business with Zik Zak for years, Ai was not afraid to approach people to find out what she wanted. Asking the tough questions was what got you results when you worked for the world's largest megacorporation. When she saw a young woman in her mid thirties delivering milk to one of the houses, she decided to find out what she knew. Delivery people, after all, at least knew the names and addresses of the people on their route. It would be a good place to start.

"Good morning," she called out with a friendly wave.

The deliverywoman stood up from her drop-off and smiled. "Morning! New in town?"

"Just visiting," Ai told her "Honeymoon. We came into town too early for anything to open, so we decided to walk around the neighborhood and see the place."

"You ought to put down roots here. It's a nice little town. I moved here five years ago. My name's Jayne. Jayne Matthews."

"You know a lot of people here?"

"A few," Jayne smiled. "Mostly the folks on my route. But I've made friends with a couple of people from the next county who work in town."

"Know anyone named Caleb?"

Jayne thought about it for a moment, then smiled as she caught on. "Looking for your brother, are you?"

"How...?" Jack began.

Jayne's smile widened. "It comes with this job. When a young man or woman approaches somebody who most likely knows the names and addresses of just about everyone in town and asks if they know somebody, they're either looking for an old classmate from school or a long-lost relative. I'm guessing that you want the latter."

"Yes," Ai admitted. "Caleb is his adoptive father."

"That would be the Burgesses," Jayne told her. "Decent family. But Caleb won't be at their house today. This is Sunday and he spends his weekends working at his aunt's dairy."

"Not the dairy you work for is it?" Jack inquired.

"No," Jayne admitted. "I work for Potts' Farm, which delivers to this end of town. Old Sadie Eccleston runs the one you're looking for. Which place are you staying at?"

Ai told her.

"Well, you're not too far from there, then," Jayne told them. "If you travel three miles west of your cabin, you'll see a little brook with a covered bridge. Sadie's farm is just over that bridge and a quarter mile down the old dirt road."

"Thank you," Ai smiled. "Is there anything I should know about my brother before I introduce myself? Anything that might upset or annoy him?"

"Nah," Jayne smiled. "Olly's a pretty relaxed young man. Hardworking and sort of serious. But not above a good joke and friendly chit-chat. I think you'll find him very easy to get along with."

"Thanks," Ai told her. "If we do decide to move here I'll look you up for deliveries."

Jayne took out a small card. "Here. It's old-fashioned I know, but..."

"If it ain't broke..." Ai went on...

"Don't fix it," all three of them laughed.


	10. First Reunion

In The Name of Lynch

-Chapter 10: The First Reunion-

Sadie Eccleston set down a bale of hay and cut the rope that held it together. One or two of the milk-cows from the herd that she had let out of the barn to get a bit of sunshine looked over at her in interest. Most of them just stood there enjoying the sun's warmth as the shooed away little pests with their tails.

One cow, who had been added to the herd two seasons ago, was due to calve in a week or two. Sadie was paying special attention to her.

"Mattie, girl," the farmwoman smiled as she gently petted the pregnant cow. "Here's a little extra for you. Just don't tell the others or they'll all want some."

The cow just swished her tail in happiness as she ate and enjoyed the nice day in whatever way cows enjoy things.

"Mattie's looking good," Oliver told his aunt as he joined her with an extra pitchfork. "The water troughs are all changed out and the morning cleaning is done on the machines, so I figured I'd help you with the scattering for a bit."

"Thanks, Olly," Sadie smiled. "Won't be long now before the new calf arrives."

"Hello!"

Sadie looked over across the field in the direction of the voice that had called out.

"Did you invite friends over?" she asked Oliver.

"No, Aunt Sadie," Oliver shook his head. "Looks like nobody I know. Perhaps they're lost."

"Must be very lost to end up here," Sadie said. "Well, you better go see what they want. I'll get on with the scattering. But don't waste time. It'll be time for the afternoon cleaning soon enough."

Oliver quickly crossed the field. "Need a hand?"

"Are you Oliver?" Ai asked.

Oliver looked her over keenly. She seemed to know his name for some reason. Her accent sounded Japanese however, and her hairstyle and color suggested a Japanese-raised woman of British descent.

"Depends which one you're lookin' for, luv," he grinned. "If you want a pocket-picking orphan, that's not me. If you're looking for Aunt Sadie's hardworking nephew. That's me."

"My name's Ai Murray," Ai said. "I'm the eldest of the children of Bryce Lynch. I don't know if you know anything about him, but he's..."

"Bryce," Oliver grinned widely, "is our dear old dad."

"Well, I wouldn't describe him as old," Ai told her newfound brother. "I'll have to prepare you for things on the way. It's urgent that we all go to Network 23 as soon as..." she paused, seeing the look on his face. "What's wrong?"

"I can't leave here," Oliver told his sister. "My Aunt Sadie's cow Mattie is due to calve soon and she's going to need my help when it does."

"We've got no choice," Ai told him. "Network 23 and Network 66's viewers look like they're gearing up for a major war according to Twenty Three's artificial intelligence unit, Cat9."

"I never put much stock into those artificial brains," Oliver shook his head. "But let's say your machine is right. Is there any way to have the meeting here? If they do go to war like you said, I suppose the Networks would be involved. And I wouldn't want to be sitting in one if they do."

"I'll have to ask," Ai told him. "I guess Jack and I... oh I'm so sorry, Jack," she apologized, realizing she hadn't yet introduced him.

"It's okay, sweet," Jack smiled. Offering a hand to Oliver he introduced himself. "Jack Murray. Professional brother-in-law. I make my living by blending into the background. Usually it's furniture, but I can easily impersonate a rock or fence when necessary."

The three of them laughed and Oliver shook Jack's hand with a jovial smile.

"Well, come with me. I'll talk Aunt Sadie into letting you stay for dinner if you agree to help with the chores. And you can use the farm phone to call whoever you need to about changing the location of this gathering your talking about. If this is going to be a big famly reunion, I'd rather have it here anyhow. No place better, in my opinion, than the supper table of a nice farm for a family gathering."

Sadie watched as Oliver returned with the two new arrivals in tow. Her nephew was gesticulating in what appeared to be a cheerful manner. It put her in mind of the time he told her he had learned to ride a bicycle without training wheels.

"Aunt Sadie," he explained when they had reached her, "this is Ai Murray and her husband Jack. Ai is Bryce's daughter."

"Oh!" Sadie beamed. "Well it's good that Olly's finally getting to meet some of his old family."

"I was a little worried that you might think I was an intruder," Ai admitted.

"Nonsense," Sadie laughed. "No such thing as too much family. Where did you say you were from?"

"I was raised in Japan, so I've still got a bit of a Japanese accent. But I'm living in London with my husband."

"Well, I'm going to go in and start supper. Why don't you come and join me while the men check what needs checking in the barns. Okay with you, Olly?"

"That's fine with me," Oliver agreed. "Maybe you can teach this city-raised gal how to do some proper cooking?"

"One can only hope," Sadie smiled, leading Ai back to the farmhouse.


	11. Kitchen Conversation

In The Name of Lynch

-Chapter 11: Kitchen Conversation

The kitchen was much different than Ai Murray was accustomed to. Growing up and now living in a modern city with its current conveniences, she had never seen one that was so unique to her mind.

The dishes were lined up against the wall on the top two shelves of an old fashioned crockery dresser while on the bottom shelf there sat a pretty little set consisting of a bowl with a sugar and creamer set

"That's nice," Ai complimented as she passed it. "Looks like an antique."

"It was my great grandmother's," Sadie told her, cheerfully. "Aynsley Pembroke. It was given to her by her mother-in-law on her wedding day."

"I'll be extra careful around it, then," Ai promised.

"Not to worry, dear. Your brother already broke it a couple of times. I think he was about five the first time." Sadie smiled at the thought. "I had it mended at a little antique's shop. It's only valuable to me these days because of family history. Now, be a dear a fetch a few logs from the bin. We've got to get the fire going in the old stove."

Ai grabbed an armful of logs while Sadie opened up the old Jotul stove.

"Wouldn't it be easier to just have an electric stove?" Ai asked, placing the logs into the stove. "Not to offend, but..."

"It would be easier," Sadie admitted as she arranged the logs and lit them. "But it doesn't taste quite the same as you'll find out soon enough."

Sadie closed the old Jotul and stood up with a smile. "Now while that's warming up, I'll show you how we country folk cut up the vegetables and then I'll get started on the broth. I was going to have just leftovers with Olly tonight, so I'm afraid I haven't taken any new meat out of the freezer. But we can make a nice stew out of what's there and a few nice vegetables."

"That sounds delicious," Ai told her.

Sadie chopped a few different vegetables, giving Ai a small lecture on why it was important to chop this one along its grain or that one against it. Then, when Ai had got the hang of it, she began to mix together a simple broth.

By the time Ai had finished chopping, the delicate scent of the broth filled the kitchen with the aroma of the herbs and stock.

The door opened and Oliver walked in followed by Jack.

"All's well, Aunt Sadie," Oliver smiled.

"Wash your hands and set the table, you two," Sadie ordered. Turning to Ai she smiled at the carrots, wax beans, peppers that had been prepared. "Nicely done, dear. Now let's get these into the stew and then we can sit and talk while it cooks a bit. You boys can join us once the table's set."


	12. Waking

In The Name of Lynch

-Chapter 12- Waking-

Having sent Ai to track down her brother in Tassie, Jenny had been working on finding Bryce's other two offspring herself. By the time the phone call came in from Ai, she still hadn't tracked anyone.

"Can't talk long, mum," Ai told her. "Aunt Sadie's gonna scold me when she finds out I'm in here and not on the pot. I found my brother in Tassie. His name's Oliver Burgess. No tech background, though."

"Doesn't matter," Jenny told her. "it's in his blood. Anyone else?"

"No. Oops gotta go! Oh! We need to have the meeting here. Olly can't leave his aunt's farm. Baby cow coming. Will explain more later." She hung up quickly, leaving Jenny no chance to reply.

"Great," she said, turning back to her search. "She wants to meet at some farm in Tasmania. What am I supposed to do now? There's no way I can hook up this unit at a farm. I doubt they have a strong enough power supply."

She heard a noise that she wasn't familiar with coming from the cryo unit that Bryce's body was in. A soft sighing hiss that built slowly to a throbbing hum.

Fearing that something was wrong with it, she began trying to fix it, only to have each attempt technologically rebuffed.

A readout appeared on the screen that Cat9's image had vanished from.

~Vital signs: optimal~

~Infection : 0%~

~Thawing Cycle: Complete~

With a shock, Jenny spun just in time to see the cryo unit swing open.

Bryce was awake.

Jenny led him to the bathroom, then left him alone. Shortly after she'd returned to the computer, she heard the shower running. She didn't blame him. She was sure he needed to warm up after over twenty years of being frozen.

Bryce came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, dressed in a robe and putting drops in his eyes, which were both still sticky, though the warm shower water had gotten rid of the solid matter and had freed them from their glued-shut state.

"I'm sure my eyes will be fine in a few hours," he said, his voice hoarse from disuse. "What have we got so far?"

"Like I said, just Ai Murray, our daughter that is, and Oliver Burgess in Tasmania. We still need to locate the other two. Then we need to get to Eccleston in Farm in Tassie."

"Farm first," Bryce said. "We can track the others from there."

"How?" Jenny asked.

"Now that I'm up," Bryce explained to her, "its time for me to reawaken an old friend."

"You know, Bryce," Jenny said, as she packed. "This is going to be really weird for everyone. You're their father and you're only sixteen while they're in their twenties."

"Even weirder for me," Bryce admitted. "I suppose as a department head I should have no problems dealing with the age difference regarding being in charge, though."

"I think you're going to find it very different," Jenny warned, smiling at him. "And what about me? I was in love with you when we were both the same age. Now we aren't anymore."

"Of course we are," Bryce told her. "I may be physically sixteen, but the cryo unit I slept in wasn't a time machine. I was physically in the room with you every moment of every day. I'm the same chronological age as you. The fact that I look as young as I do is a mere side-effect. Doesn't really matter right now anyhow. We've got more pressing matters to deal with. Emotional pursuits will have to wait until another time."

"Well, at least we know your mind survived the thawing process intact," Jenny smiled. "That sounds like the Bryce I knew and loved."

"Go make reservations for the morning flight to Tasmania," Bryce told her. "It's time for me to wake up Max."


	13. Adjusting to Fatherhood

In The Name of Lynch

-Chapter 13: Adjusting to Fatherhood-

Waiting at the airport terminal window for the flight to Hobart International Airport, Bryce watched the other flights take off and land.

His young mind had been very busy with many things over the past twenty five or so years, assisting the Network 23 mainframe. And he had learned many things that he had never been privy to before regarding the Network.

But none of that had prepared him for the reality of what he was facing now.

He was a father.

As his and Jenny's plane landed, he let that fact sink in. His mind had been a part of the discussions regarding the use of his DNA for just such a purpose. But at the time, it had been a part of the Cat9 program. And the most that had been expected of him at the time was a few medical records if they became necessary.

Now events had forced him to come out of stasis. And in his current state, he could no longer simply sit back and not take an interest in his children. Even if they were someone else's now from a legal standpoint, he felt a sense of protectiveness toward them. The same, in a way, that he'd felt toward Max when Grossberg had demanded that Max be erased. And yet, it wasn't the same. It seemed stronger.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and tried to remember his parents. He wondered if they'd been just as protective of him. He supposed they had. His mother had wanted him to call her once a week when he'd been away at school. But he made his schedule so tight with the things he'd thought were important to his grades and studies that he had never put aside time for it. He regretted that now. He wondered if his mother might still be alive or where she might be located. His father was a different matter altogether. Bryce respected the man, but in all honesty it could be suggested that he picked up his workaholic habits from him. So the two hadn't spoken much in Bryce's entire lifetime. Though Bryce would guess that if his father did take enough time away from work to say two words about him they'd be "I'm proud".

Bryce wondered how proud his father would be of him today. He was a teen father. That was something his parents had frowned upon when he was growing up. They'd never directly approached him on the subject of biological responsibility, of course. He had merely heard them making disparaging remarks about teen parents while watching a TV show that had been focused on the subject just before dinner one night.

Of course, Bryce had been in cryostasis for over two decades, so he was really somewhere in his late forties or early fifties. But that was only on a chronological level. The truth was that even his own mind refused to see himself as anything other than just seventeen.

He wondered if he would have to recalibrate his birthday now that he thought of it. The day he'd gone under had been the last day of his sixteenth year. His body had been biologically scheduled to become seventeen the following day. If that was true, was today now his birthday since his biological clock had been stopped while he was frozen and was restarted when he'd been thawed.

A tug on his coat pulled him from his thoughts.

"Plane's ready," Jenny told him.

"Okay," he replied, following her down the ramp and into the coach section of the plane.

"You seemed distracted," Jenny said as she adjusted her seatbelt.

"Just thinking about how different my life has suddenly become," Bryce told her. "I am a teen father. I have four children, two of whom haven't been found yet."

"There's still one thing that's the same about you," Jenny reassured him.

Bryce raised an eyebrow.

Jenny smiled. "You're still unique." she told him.


	14. Searches and Meetings

In The Name of Lynch

-Chapter 14: Searches and Meetings-

Max Headroom was elated.

For a quarter of a century, after his creator/'mother'/best friend Bryce had been placed in stasis, Max had gone into a kind of funk. Then, last night, he'd heard Bryce's voice. And it had not come from the Cat9 program that Bryce had been linked to for as long as Max could recently recall.

Instead it had come from what Max thought of as Outer Air. The place where Edison and his kind dwelt.

Overjoyed that Bryce was awake again after so long, he had instantly bombarded Bryce with a million questions.

Bryce cheerfully deflected Max's inquiries. "Later, Max. Right now I need a favor."

"Of course," Max drawled.

"Good. You can tell Edison this was a small payback for the two million favors I did for him," Bryce said as he had turned to Jenny. "You got a name for that last one?"

Jenny had given the first name to him. It was Marlene.

"Just the name Marlene and the fact that she was adopted out from Ovu-Vat about 25 years ago," Max said in a tone of stern cheerfulness. "No location. Not even a hint."

Bryce and Jenny had run out of the studio then to get to the airport.

"Fine," Max had called to the empty room as the door closed. "No problem! It shouldn't take too long! What am I supposed to do when I find her?"

The room remained silent.

"Oh well..." Max shrugged this computer-generated shoulders and started looking. "You could've at least put the needle into a haystack before you made me look for it instead of dropping it into a pile of more needles!"

Just a day and a half later, Bryce was being shaken awake by Jenny.

"Wake up, kiddo," she told him playfully. "We're at Hobart."

Bryce opened his eyes, removing the seatbelt from around his waist at the same time. Jenny, who'd taken the aisle seat, was already pulling down their bags.

"My equipment had better not be damaged," Bryce said, not pleased that they had forced him to check his tech with the larger bags rather than allow him to carry it with him in the cabin.

"I'm sure it's fine," Jenny told him as they hurried down the ramp to the terminal. "And you did have it insured."

"While I'm sure the insurance will pay for the physical equipment, it won't replace the programs or the hundreds of hours it took me to create them."

"I know you better than that, Bryce Lynch," Jenny scolded. "Those hundreds of hours consisted of about ten minutes of hyper-genius programming with the rest of it being you playing with your pet parrot. Who, I am sorry to tell you, died four years ago of old age."

"Shame," Bryce admitted. "Tess was a good pet. For Tesseract, in case you were wondering."

"Curious," Jenny remarked, raising an eyebrow. "Never pegged you as a L'Engle fan. I wonder what other secrets you've been keeping."

"I'm nine hundred and seventy-one years..." Bryce began.

Jenny laughed aloud as she put a shushing finger on his lips and told him: "You are most definitely NOT the Doctor."

"How do you know?" Bryce asked, in a tone of mock seriousness. He was glad that she'd gotten the reference. Edison and the rest of the team would've just looked at him as if he were growing antlers.

"Because if you were, we would not have just spent twenty-seven hours cramped up in coach."

Reaching the baggage claim, they were both relieved to find everything in excellent condition.

They picked up the small car that Jenny had reserved.

"Family trip?" the gentlemen at the counter inquired, giving Jenny a friendly grin.

"Actually," Bryce interceded, "my fiancee and I have been apart for a quarter century while I've been in cryogenic hibernation and we're just on this little trip so I can stretch my legs and do a little sight-seeing."

The counterman's jaw dropped nearly a foot and stayed there for several moments until Bryce gave a 'just-kidding' wink which had all three of them laughing.

Jenny shook her head with a chuckle. "I almost forgot about your weird sense of humor," she told him as the counterman handed her the keys to the rental car.

Ten minutes later, they were driving to the ferry to Tasmania.


	15. Younger Father, Older Son

In The Name of Lynch

-Chapter 15: Younger Father, Older Son-

For the better part of the morning, Ai had been helping her brother Oliver in the milking barn. They took the milking machines off the cows to clean off any dried milk crust that would irritate the cows' udders.

"While I'm doing this," Oliver told his newfound sister, "take this udder balm and ... here, I'll show you." He took a bit of the balm and rubbed it onto a cow's udder, being careful not to get any on the teats. "You want to make sure not to get the teats," he pointed out, "or it'll affect the taste of the milk."

Ai got the hang of it quickly. As she soothed the cows' tender udders with the balm, she noticed the pregnant cow relaxing in the corner. "Is she okay?" she asked.

"Mattie," Oliver replaced the first machine and then went to tend to the next. ""Yeah. She's good. But its her first pregnancy so we want to keep a special eye on her. "When you're finished with the balming you can help me brush her coat. We'll be able to get things done faster if we each take a side."

"Do the others need brushing, too?" Ai asked.

"Yeah, but Mattie needs it more," Oliver explained. "She's off her hooves a lot so she gets dusty more than they do. Aunt Sadie and Jack will be out to brush the others after they finish scattering the hay for the cows who are outside today."

As if on cue, Sadie Eccleston came into the barn at that point. But the young man accompanying her wasn't Jack.

"And this is the milking barn," she was saying as they walked in. "Not as fancy as the technology you're used to, but I suppose it still is technology in a way."

"Fancy does not necessarily equal elegant," Bryce replied, earning a smile from the older woman. "Some of the equipment I used at Network 23 was stuff I'd cobbled together in school. I even had an old fashioned typewriter for a keyb- " He fell suddenly silent as his eyes fell upon the young man brushing a very pregnant animal that Bryce was unfamiliar along with the help of Bryce's daughter, Ai.

"Oh, hello, father," Ai smiled. Seeing the bewildered look on his face she added, "it's a cow."

"Oh is that what they look like," Bryce laughed. Curiosity getting the better of him, he approached Mattie tentatively.

"Oh go ahead, she won't bite," Sadie laughed. "You city boys. Always think the cow's gonna sprout bull's horns and go charging after you."

Bryce decided rather quickly that cows were as good for petting as they were for getting milk and other products from. But also decided that they weren't really great listeners since they seemed a little too detached.

"She seems to like you," Oliver told him. He'd been a little too busy to notice how Ai had greeted Bryce.

"Some people do," Bryce shrugged. "Bryce Lynch, by the way."

"Oliver Bur..." Oliver began automatically, then faltered. "You're kidding, right?"

"I'm afraid not," Bryce grinned. "Must be a bit of a surprise having a dad who's still a teen when you're already in your mid twenties."

"How about you," Oliver inquired. "Must be a little intimidating having your kids be almost twice your age."

"Not really," Bryce told him. "I was head of my entire department when I worked at Network 23 before I went into stasis."

"And the only one who worked in the entire department," Jenny added from the door.

"Hey! Don't give away all my secrets!" Bryce protested, though he was smiling as he said this.

Sadie looked around for a bit, then wrote something down on an old-fashioned pad of paper. After seeming to consider it, she wrote down one more thing and handed the list to her nephew.

"Would the two of you," she said, indicating Bryce and Oliver, "head into town and pick up the things on this list. We need a few more vegetables and I'm out of homemade bread, sadly. So you'll have to pick some up at Martin's Bakery. Don't get the kind at the grocer store. The bread at Martin's is better."

"Sure thing, Aunt Sadie," Oliver said.

"This feels very familiar," Bryce remarked as he followed.

"I think she just wants to give us time alone to get acquainted," Oliver smiled as they got into his pickup truck. Grinning broadly, he turned on the radio. "I find the best way to bond with someone is through music," he said over the song that was playing. "It might take a few tries, but eventually you find something that everyone just starts singing along to."

"Well, just keep in mind that I've been asleep for about twenty-five years," Bryce reminded him.

"Don't worry, country music's been the same for the past hundred years." Oliver tapped the steering wheel in tune with the new song that had just started.

Bryce rolled his eyes. "So people are still losing stuff and singing about it, then?"

"Yup," Oliver laughed. "Some find stuff. But it usually turns out to have some kind of curse upon it."

"Which causes them to lose everything else," Bryce concluded.

"Doesn't just happen in country music," Oliver said giving three distinctive thumps on the top of the dashboard to make his point.

Getting the reference, Bryce laughed aloud.

'Gotcha!' Oliver thought to himself. 'It may not always work in the way you expect it to, but music is a wonderful way to bond.'

They went into Martin's first. As they walked into the door, they were welcomed by the aromas of freshly baked breads, the sweet smell of cookies and brownies, and the savory scent of carrot and spice and gingerbread cakes.

"Hey, Marty!" Oliver waved at the man behind the counter who was just finished putting the fresh carrot cake cupcakes he'd made onto their display plate.

"Ollie! Good to see you," Martin waved back once his hands were cupcake-free. "Who's the kid?"

"Remember how I told you a few years ago that I found out I was adopted?"

"I seem to remember something about that," Martin recalled cheerfully. "Found a relative, then?"

"My dad," Oliver replied. Seeing Martin's skeptical look he added. "He was in cryosleep for about twenty five years or so."

"That was some beauty sleep," Martin told Bryce.

"I'm not sure I'd call it sleep as such," Bryce confided. "Sure my body got plenty of rest, but my brain was busy assisting the Network 23 computer mainframe through a two-way bio-technical interface."

"I'll just pretend I understood that to save time," Martin said to Oliver in a happily conspiratorial tone as he picked up a still-warm loaf of bread and placed it in a bag for him.

"Good idea," Oliver agreed.

"Tin cans and string," Bryce whispered to them as he passed behind them while looking at the carrot cake and wondering if he should pick some up.

"Got it," Martin replied. "So you've really been asleep for the past twenty-five years?"

"Give or take a day or so," Bryce replied.

"Then I guess you didn't hear about the whole fiasco with that new upstart company that tried to take on both Zik Zak and Zlin about ten years ago? Really gave the big guys a run for their money. Really high quality products at very competive rates. Nobody knew how they could afford to stay in business."

"So what happened?" Bryce asked, genuinely curious.

"Well, a few people in Zik Zak quality control decided to see if they could figure out what materials they were using," Martin explained. "Turns out they were taking parts from Zik Zak products and gluing them to parts from Zlin products and then passing off the results as their own. So, naturally, in a rare show of camaraderie, Zik Zak and Zlin joined forces long enough to sue this other little upstart right out of business before cheerfully going back to screwing each other over in the ad markets."

"I wonder why the Network 23 mainframe didn't tell you about it," Oliver remarked.

"It wouldn't be in the Network 23 mainframe," Bryce pointed out. "Advertising contracts are the kept in the advertiser's mainframe's. Makes it easier for them to switch networks if they don't think they're getting enough coverage."

"We'd better hurry," Oliver said, noticing the clock on the wall. "Sorry to cut you short, Marty."

"No problem," Martin told them. "Come back tomorrow if you've got a moment."

After paying for the bread, and deciding to buy the carrot cake after all, Oliver and Bryce left the bakery.

"I'm afraid you'll find very few people here who have a lot of technical savvy," Oliver told his father, "there are some, but not like you have in your big cities."

"There aren't as many in the city as you might think," Bryce confided. "In fact the people there are pretty much the same as those here as far as how smart they are. I bet if you took anyone here and gave them the stuff we have to play with in the city they'd be able to figure it out pretty fast."

"Maybe, maybe not," Oliver replied. "I mean they'd get some things straight off, sure. But some stuff can't really be rightly identified outside it's proper zone."

"Parts of an elephant," Bryce remembered as they put their first purchases into the back of the truck and covered them to keep the sun off of them.

Oliver frowned for a second, then remembered as he and Bryce walked down the end of the road to the little grocery store. "Right. Each of the blind men touched a part of the elephant and thought it was a wholly different animal. Same is true in this case. If you give a spark plug to someone who's never seen any of the machines that use one, they will speculate many uses for it and none of them will be what it was intended for."

"Olly!" a voice called from one of the registers.

Oliver and Bryce turned to see a man standing there with three bags already prepared at the otherwise empty counter.

"Hey, Pete. What's all this then?"

"Your Aunt had me pack up these for you," Pete told him. "She said she'd figured that the two of you had probably been at the bakery for a bit longer than intended."

"You know Marty," Oliver said, paying for the three bags of groceries. He picked up two while Bryce got the third. Then they both walked back to the truck and put the bags with the bread and the carrot cake.

Then, they got into the cab of the pickup and headed back to Eccleston Farm.


	16. Bread and Circumstances

In The Name of Lynch

-Chapter 16: Bread and Circumstances-

Bryce and Oliver brought the groceries into the kitchen and started unpacking them.

"Smells wonderful," Bryce observed.

"Just the broth and a couple vegetables so far. You two boys can chop the carrots, celery, and peppers you just bought. You might need to show him how, Ollie."

"Good idea, since I've never sliced a carrot in my life," Bryce admitted.

"It's not too difficult," Oliver told him. "Most people in the cities and suburbs cut with the middle of the knife. That's okay, too. But you'll find it easier if you use the part of the blade that's closest to the handle. Let me show you," he demonstrated with one carrot, then slid the pieces to the end of the cutting board.

"I think I understand," Bryce told him, trying a few slices. He did well for a while, then...

"Ouch!"

Sadie opened a drawer and pulled out a band-aid. She handed it to Bryce with a pitying smile.

"I do that, too, sometimes," she admitted. "Darned stupid way to add salt if you ask me."

Bryce gave a little chuckle as he started to open the little package.

Jenny swiped it from his hand and opened it. Before he could argue that it was something he could've done himself, she wrapped it around his finger and gave him a little smile.

"Thanks, Mom," he said in an amusedly sarcastic tone.

Jenny gave a quirky little smile and patted him on the head before returning to helping Ai and Jack doing a tiny bit of housework in the living room, which Sadie was grateful for.

Once the vegetables were finished and in the pot, Bryce and Oliver took on the task of tidying up the guest rooms where Bryce and Jenny would be staying.

Sadie stirred the stew until the delicious aroma told her that it was ready. Then she ladled it into her best serving tureen and brought it over to the table. It was to be her nephew's first meal with his biological father and she wanted it to be as nice as possible.

Ai and Jenny went to set the table once they were finished with the dusting.

"What's he like, my father Bryce I mean?"

Jenny considered this. "I used to say he was unique when he and I were both the same age," she recalled. "He still is."

The phone sounded in the other room. "Jack, can you get that for me?" Sadie called, still stirring the pot on the Jotul.

"Sure thing," Jack called back. He reached the vu-phone and pressed the answer button.

"Jack Murray answering on behalf of Sadie Eccleston," he said.

"And this... and this... and this is Max Headroom, coming to you from the Orkneys with some very interesting news for Bryce Lynch. He around?"

"He just finished chopping carrots a few minutes ago," Jack said, earning a bemused look from Max who might as well have been told that Jesus was trick-or-treating as Satan. "I'll go get him for you."

"I'll just wait here while I readjust my entire outlook on life," Max remarked as Jack left the room to get Bryce.

A few minutes later, Bryce entered the room.

"What did you find out?" Bryce asked.

"Marlene Stevens is currently residing in New Zealand. She can't get time off right now, but she can be here as soon as this weekend," Max replied. "She's a week's worth of shearing to do on the Corriedale farm where she works and she can't get out of it. Your other daughter, Claire Ballantyne, lives in the Orkneys near Scotland and will also be here this weekend."

"I suppose that'll have to do," Bryce decided. "Good work, Max. Look, I gotta run. It's mealtime here. Go locate Edison and the others from the team. Tell them what's going on and where the meeting is going to be."

Max nodded and vanished from the screen.

Bryce returned to the kitchen.

"We were just about to start without you," Sadie kidded him as he sat down.

"Sorry about that," Bryce apologized. "By the way, a few others are coming this weekend."

"Do ask next time," Sadie scolded him.

"My apologies," Bryce said, sincerely. "I had thought that Oliver had explained things."

"I figured that was your job," Oliver told his young father.

"Very well," Bryce said. "A little while ago, while I was in cryostasis, I began picking up hints that suggested a major ratings war. And not..."

Sadie held up a finger to indicated that she wanted a question asked before he went on too much further.

"Yes?" Bryce asked.

"How did you learn this if you were frozen all that time?"

"My body was dormant, but my mind was not. As I wanted to continue to assist Edison with his work, as well as help out at Network 23, I had my brain connected to the Network 23 mainframe. It was a two way connection, so as I was able to help out, I was also able to find out what was going on with the networks. Over time, I began to notice that the free TVs in the London Fringes were experiencing rapid switching. Rapid to the point of belligerence. And it wasn't just in the Fringes. Ratings drops and swells were happening all over the inner city. Certain products from Zik Zak and Zlin were being purchased at an alarming rate while others that were normally popular started getting the cold shoulder."

"So, what does that mean?" Ai asked.

"It means the networks, not just Network 23 and Network 66, but all of them with the exception of Big Time, could very well be starting a shooting war, I mean guns not shows, as soon as the weekend after next. Or even sooner than that."

"You think you can stop it?" Jack asked.

"I'm not sure," Bryce admitted. "But I can at least gathering my family and friends and try to ensure their safety."

"Very well," Sadie told him as she buttered a piece of bread and set it on her plate. She held up the ladle and began serving the stew. "They're welcome to stay. But I'm afraid you'll have to sleep in the barn when they arrive. I'm one bed short of the number you need I'm afraid. And since it is polite for the host, and that's you in this case since you extended the invites, to sacrifice for the comfort of his guests..."

It was clear to Bryce that Sadie had every intention of teaching him a lesson about asking first next time.

"Would I be rude if I for a quilt?" he inquired, politely.

"Not at all," Sadie smiled. "I'll give you two, in fact. You can place one over one of the hay bales and use that as a bed. They're quite comfortable like that if you know how to do it."

"I'll join you," Jenny said. She dipped her bread in the broth of her soup and took a healthy bite.

"Not this time, dear," Sadie said. "I know your heart is in the right place, but I'm a bit old fashioned. Girls and boys don't share a room unless they're married. Besides, you can't protect him all the time."

Bryce swallowed the mouthful of stew he'd been chewing and wiped a small drip of broth from the corner of his lip. "I'll be okay, Jenny," he told her. "You stay in here and keep warm."

"If you're sure," Jenny told him.

Bryce nodded. "I'm sure," he replied.


	17. Creature Comforts

In The Name of Lynch

-Creature Comforts-

Bryce had grown up in the city, and had been locked in a world of technology from the day he'd turned ten. As he had never been beyond the Fringes near London before these events, he was finding the countryside to be a nice change of scenery.

Sadie had given Bryce an extra blanket and quilt before going to bed. It was in the corner of the guest room right now. It was for the next evening, not this one. This even he would enjoy the comforts of the guest room for one more night before being relegated to the barn as had been agreed upon.

Bryce knew that his new sleeping arrangements were nobody's fault but his own. He recognized now that he should've asked Sadie's permission first. But he had been in too much of a rush to get everyone together to think of such things. Still, he didn't think it would be too much of a problem for him to sleep in the barn. It couldn't be much colder than his cryo unit had been, or than the thermal testing chamber he had been in at Security Systems.

At around eleven the next morning, Edison arrived with his wife Vanna.

"Murray's in town," he told Bryce after he'd put the suitcases in the guest room. "I admit I was rather surprised to hear that you'd awoken from your slumber of twenty something years."

"I wasn't planning on it at first," Bryce replied. "But circumstances demanded it."

"Which circumstances were those?" Vanna asked.

"A pregnant cow," Bryce replied. "Oliver wouldn't leave here on her account. So I had to come here. And since bringing a cryogenic unit from England to Tasmania is out of the question, I had no choice but to awaken and come here myself."

"It must be odd to be still a teenager when your children are in their mid twenties," Edison observed.

"It is a bit pecuiliar," NBRyce admitted.

"Bryce," Jenny said as she walked in. "Your daughter Claire just arrived from the Orkneys."

With a smile Bryce replied, "I'll go see her. Edison, will you be okay?"

"I think I can find my around," Edison assured him.

Bryce went out to the kitchen to meet his daughter. She was standing there talking to Sadie. She was a petite woman, just three inches over five feet. Standing beside her in a pretty pink dress with yellow flowers was a little child. Bryce wondered who the little girl was.

"Mommy," the child said, tugging at Claire's brown and blue skirt. "Mommy. Boy."

Claire looked up and saw Bryce. "Hello?"

"Claire Ballantyne," Bryce inquired. When she nodded he continued. "I'm Bryce Lynch."

"You're...?" Claire asked, rather astonished. "I'm sorry. I expected you to be older. I mean I'd heard that... But..."

"It's okay," Bryce smiled. "I understand."

"How old are you?" Claire asked.

"Chronologically I'm in my forties. But Physically I'm seventeen."

Claire smiled down at the child. "That makes you the world's youngest grandpa, then," she told Bryce. "This is Charlotte. She's your granddaughter."

Bryce stumbled into a chair. A grandfather at seventeen! He could scarcely believe it!

"You okay there, grandad?" Edison laughed.

"I think so," Bryce said, agreeably. "I just wasn't fully prepared for this. I suppose I should've realized this was a possibility."

"Charlotte," Claire told her daughter, "Say hellow to Bryce Lynch. He's your grampa."

"How come he doesn't have white hair like Grampa Steve?" Charlotte demanded. She went over to Bryce. "Do you put that stuff in your hair?"

"She's his granddaughter all right," said Murray who had arrived, unnoticed, five minutes earlier.

"Nope, I'm just young," Bryce told Charlotte. Looking in Murray's direction, he added. "Nice to see you again."

"Sadie told me the sleeping arrangements," Murray replied. "I explained that there would be another coming, so I'll join you out in the barn."

"You didn't have to," Bryce pointed out.

"Well, since you never resigned from Network 23, you're still a part of my team," Murray pointed out. "That makes you my responsibility. Besides, you might need my help."

"I know how to sleep. I've had years of practice."

"True," Murray agreed. "But I was thinking of the reason you're here instead of at Network 23 today."

"You mean Mattie," Bryce said, recalling the cow who had managed to force him to rework his plans.

Bryce hoped that night as he tried to get comfortable lying on top of a bale of hay covered with a quilt with a blanket atop him, that Mattie would not go into labor that night.

"It's funny to see everyone so much older," he told Murray "Cryo sleep is weird when it comes to time. You're aware of how much time passes in a way, but you're asleep, so your mind thinks in terms of dream-time. You expect it to really be only ten or fifteen seconds that have passed."

"Fascinating," Murray yawned. "We'll ponder that in the morning."

Mattie obliged Bryce's hopes that she would not start giving birth that night by waiting until two in the morning.

"Go to the house and wake Ms. Eccleston," Murray told Bryce.

"And get my head bitten off?" Bryce shook his head.

"Okay, wait here. I'll go get her," Murray said. He ran toward the house.

"What do I do in the meantime?" Bryce called out to him.

"Try not to faint!" Murray called back.

"That wasn't very helpful," Bryce pouted. Going to Mattie's head, he knelt beside her. "Look. This is a first for both of us. So I'm afraid I won't be all that helpful." He stroked her head , hoping it was the right thing to do.

Mattie mooed in extreme discomfort, but seemed a little calmer.

"How is she?" Sadie asked as she and Oliver joined Bryce.

"Hard to say," Bryce admitted. "I don't know the first thing about this sort of stuff."

"Well, you're doing fine with her so far," Sadie told him.

"I'm just talking to her," Bryce pointed out.

"That is exactly the right thing to do," Saide explained. Then she frowned. "Oh dear."

"What is it?"

"I think," Sadie felt the bump that was the baby cow. "I was afraid of that. It's a breech. The wrong way. We can get her out, but Bryce, you're going to have to reach in there and pull the calf's legs into the birth canal."

"Me?" Bryce asked, nearly in a state of panic. That had to be the oddest thing anyone had ever asked him to do.

"This is her first calving, so she's too narrow for either me or Oliver to do it. Don't worry, I'll talk you through it. Oliver, go back to the house and called Dr. Leon."

Oliver hurried up to the house while Sadie crouched down beside Bryce.

"This is completely unlike everything I've ever done in my life," Bryce remarked.

"I'm pleased that I am able to offer you a truly unique experience," Sadie replied. "Now," she said, holding Mattie's legs so she wouldn't kick Bryce. "All you need to do is reach up into the birth canal," she guided one of his hands to the requested location. "You'll need to use both hands."

Bryce did so, feeling extremely weirded out by the experience.

"Do you feel the calf's legs?"

"Yes." Bryce nodded.

"Grab them near the hooves and pull them straight. Don't worry about breaking one. That can be mended later. We have to get the calf out or both it and Mattie will die."

"And that did not put any extra burden on me," Bryce muttered as he pulled at the legs of the calf that was struggling to be born. "They're straight."

"Good," Sadie said as Oliver arrived with Doctor Leon. She turned to the doctor. "Breech."

"Who's the kid?" Doctor Leon asked.

"Tricky to explain," Sadie replied.

"Okay, kiddo," Doctor Leon told Bryce. "You need to pull the calf until the hips are past the opening to the birth canal. I can take care of things from there. Just keep pulling the calf. A little bit faster."

Bryce picked up the pace, wondering as he did so what his former classmates would think if they saw this.

Once the hips were out, Doctor Leon took over while Bryce wiped off the blood and birth fluids off with a nearby towel and went back over to Mattie's head and resumed stroking her as he'd been doing before.

Once the little calf, a girl, was finally out, Doctor Leon turned to Bryce. "Not a bad job, Mr. Inexplicable."


	18. Morning Interlude

-Morning Interlude-

After the doctor had departed, everyone went back to bed to get a couple hours of sleep before dawn.

Morning came quickly as it usually does when one has been awakened in the wee hours. The sun was barely above the horizon when Oliver woke and went out to check on Mattie and her calf. He got to the barn and saw Sadie standing there with Bryce. Bryce was looking cheerfully bleary-eyed.

"I'm glad they're both okay," he said, surprising himself. Before he'd gone into cryostasis all those years ago, he had never thought of people as anything more than coworkers, rivals, or useful acquaintances. The only ones he had felt anything resembling affection for had been Edison, Theora, and Jenny, and that had been a simple bud of friendship that he had never allowed to blossom for the sake of professionalism.

Now that he knew he had children, though they were all in their twenties, his heart was no longer closed off. Looking at Mattie's calf, he wondered about those things he had missed in his frozen state.

"You're very lucky," he told the cow. "You get to grow up with your little one. That'll never happen to me I'm afraid."

"You're still young," Sadie told him. "You'll find someone one day."

"Who?" Bryce asked. "Jenny? She's great. But what would the world say if a woman in her forties married what looks like a boy of seventeen? And I can't marry a girl my apparent age because I know I'm not seventeen chronologically."

"There is something I think I should warn you," Sadie said, leaning close to Bryce. With her lips near his ear she whispered. "When your heart tells you you've found the right one... you're not going to care a dingo's left ear what anyone else thinks."

Jenny joined them a few minutes later with Edison and Vanna.

Bryce's shy smile finally reached his eyes.


	19. Marlene Arrives

-Marlene Arrives-

It was about four in the afternoon when Marlene finally arrived. She was wearing a harried expression on her face.

"Sorry about being about two hours late," she grumbled. "One of the problems with being a Blank is that the airport finds it a convenient excuse to keep your luggage. I had to swing by the consignment shop and pick up a few outfits. Thank Heaven they accept old cash."

"If you're a Blank, how did you board the flight?" Murray inquired.

"Max Headroom got me on board. Are you my father? Bryce Lynch?"

"No. I'm Murray. Bryce is down by the pond talking with his former classmate, Jenny."

"Childhood sweethearts?" Marlene inquired, raising an eyebrow.

"If they were it's taken him over twenty years to figure it out," Murray told her. "Still, better late than never. Though there is one little complication."

"Which way is the pond?" Marlene asked.

Murray pointed her in the right direction. With a thankful smile, she hurried off to finally meet her father.

Reaching the pond moments later, she saw a woman in her forties who was sitting on a rock by the bank with her toes in the water. Near her was a boy of sixteen who was skimming stones over the surface of the pond.

"You know, Jen," he said in a voice that was both happy and casual. "I really think we can make this work. Sure we'll get a few stares. And I'm sure some shock show host will want to have us on his show."

"It's perfect if he does, you know," Jenny pointed out. "We can inform everyone in the world about your true age and explain things so that nobody pesters us or calls me a cradle robber or... what was that word they used to use?"

Marlene's mind raced as it wrapped itself around what they were saying. This mere teenager was her father. Even if he had been considered adult at his age in the country where he grew up, she couldn't think of him as such. While she now lived in New Zealand and had lived there for the past five years, she had grown up in the United States where the minimal age of physical consent at the time had a little older.

"I don't know, Ocelot or something," Bryce shrugged, picking up and skimming another stone.

"Cougar, actually," Marlene said, happy to get a word in. "Are you...?"

"Bryce Lynch," Bryce introduced himself. "You're Marlene...?"

"Blank Marlene," she told him. "I wasn't expecting a child-father, to be honest. This is going to take a little getting used to."

"Child?" Bryce sounded mildly offended.

"I grew up in the United States," Marlene told him. "I've only lived in New Zealand for the past five years."

"But I was under the impression that you were adopted to New Zealand," Bryce replied, confused.

"I was," Marlene confirmed. "But my family moved to the U.S. when I was seven. My adoptive mother was in the Air Force and she was stationed there on extended tour of duty. My father decided to pack us up and move over there to be close to her. So, what was all that talk about shock show hosts and ocelots? You two thinking about getting married or something?"

"We might be," Bryce admitted. "But don't tell anyone. We'll make the announcement in a little while. We still are trying to get used to the idea. And we're a little nervous that the others might have trouble accepting it."

"Because of how young you look?" Marlene asked.

Bryce nodded.

"Your secret's safe with me," Marlene promised. "You know you can always elope."

"Better not to," Bryce said. "It might be weird for them to watch us get married. But Edison and the rest of the old team would pitch a fit if I got married and didn't invite them."

Marlene joined her father in skimming stones while Jenny continued to cool her feet in the pond.

"We'd better get back up to the house," Jenny suggested after a while. "They're probably starting to get dinner ready by now. And if we don't help out we might not get fed."

"Whatever you say, Jenny Penny," Bryce grinned at her. He skimmed one last stone, then went over to help her down from the rock. Unfortunately the bank where he stood was slippery with silt and the two of them both tumbled into the pond.

Jenny sat up, ego and backside both slightly bruised while Bryce rubbed his elbow which had a little abrasion on it that was bleeding just a little bit.

"You know," Oliver said to them as he arrived with a little smirk on his face, "if you want to get baptized there's a little church down the road."

The four of them laughed merrily, then walked back to the little farmhouse.


	20. Family Plot

In The Name of Lynch

-Family Plot-

The family gathered together at the dinner table. Oliver had gone into town earlier that afternoon and had picked up a couple scallop pies which smelled wonderful as they were placed upon the table. Fresh peas  
with pearl onions and a green salad had also been set before them.

Sitting next to his granddaughter, Bryce got permission from Claire to cut up the child's food for her.

"Have you ever had these?" he asked Charlotte, indicating the scallops.

"Scarabs?" Charlotte blinked.

"I think a scarab is a kind of beetle," Bryce told her, smiling. "These are called scallops. But that was pretty close."

"Sca..." Charlotte tried. "whoops?"

Bryce laughed. "That's okay. The important thing is that they're yummy."

"Yup." Charlotte agree. "Ummy!"

"But you have to wait a moment. We don't want it to be too hot, right?"

"Right." Charlotte said with a smile.

"I'll take it from here, pops," Claire said. "I believe you have something important to discuss with everyone."

"Huh?!"  
Bryce blinked. Did she know about him and Jenny. Then he remembered the reason they had all been brought to this little dairy farm.

"Oh, right. The ratings war."

"What did you think I meant?"

Bryce glanced quickly at Jenny, which nobody missed. "Something else." he said, mysteriously. "But let's talk about the network war first. While I was in cryo, connected to the Network 23 mainframe in the form of the Cat9 artificial intelligence program, I noticed a growing correlation between the ratings patterns of the top networks and the levels of violence within the community."

Murray listened patiently for the end of Bryce's sentence before asking "Do you actually need to breath?"

"Of course," Bryce told him. "That's how we make words, Murray. Air passes the vocal chords which vibrate and- "

"Hey, professor!" Edison called from the other end of the table "Let's get back on track, okay?"

"Right!" Bryce called back with a smile, even though the table wasn't that long. "The patterns also matched a rising sale in a variety of items which are not weapons per se. We all know that actual weapons, firearms, etc. were made illegal to produce about ten years ago. There are those who still have them, but nobody makes the bullets any more. So they're basically collectors' items or museum pieces. However there are certain common items that can be used as weapons."

"Such as?" Theora inquired.

"Well, first off are the items that don't need to be altered. Kitchen knives for example. Forks are slightly less effective, but can still hurt. Hat pins. Small but effective for use in blinding an opponent if you're skilled enough to use them in close combat. Chains. Belts. Things of that nature."

"So what are the things that can become weapons if altered?" Marlene asked.

"Glass bottles can be broken and used as cutting weapons. Or they can be filled with explosive chemicals."

"Molotov cocktail," Murray noted.

Bryce gave a nod and continued. "I heard of one person who was modifying old 45 records into throwing stars. I'm not sure they'd be completely effective. I think they might be too flimsy. But it is a worrisome thing all the same."

He waited for all this to sink in. Then continued.

"All these things point to a full scale war between the viewers. And it's very possible that the networks themselves will take sides in order to retain viewer loyalty and support. They may even encourage their sponsors to make ready-made versions of those items which are being converted."

"But that's illegal!" Theora said in a shocked tone.

"Old saying," Murray replied. "All's fair in love and war."

"So what do you recommend?" Edison asked. "We can't use a visual narcotic to pacify everyone. They're illegal."

"I know," Bryce replied. "Plus it wouldn't work. Video narcotics work on a different emotional trigger than the one that produces the need to commit violence. At best you'd end up with, to use an example, gentlemen who shook hands while stabbing each other. A literal civil war you might say."

Claire picked up a few peas that Charlotte had knocked onto the floor.

"It's okay, dear," Sadie told her. "I'll sweep after dinner."

"No, I'll get it," Charlotte promised. "She's my daughter so her messes are my responsibility."

"Go on, Bryce," Theora encouraged. "Do you have any plans as far as how to deal with this?"

"It's my understanding that Max hasn't been broadcasting much while I was under."

"He was pining for you, I suppose," Edison suggested.

"Something along those lines," Bryce agreed. "Anyhow, I think we should reintroduce Max to Network 23's viewers. I'm hoping that their almost religious belief in him will make them listen to what he has to say about the foolishness of an armed ratings war."

"So, why did you gather us together?" Oliver asked.

"Because there is a strong chance this won't work. I couldn't gather your entire families unfortunately. I had no idea how many people are in each one, so there was no way to..."

"You don't have to justify yourself, father," Ai told him. "The rest of our families are not your concern. Only we are your children."

"Thank you," Bryce replied. "Sadie has no more room here if anyone wanted to call their adoptive families into town. But we can look for a house that might be big enough."

"There aren't any, I'm afraid," Oliver said. "But if we can pool together enough funds, there is a construction company in town that can build one."

"You thinking of the old abandoned McMillan spread?" Sadie asked. "We'd also have to buy the property. I think the city owns it."

"That's be tricky since we're only here as temporary residents," Edison pointed out.

"We'll put the building in my name," Oliver decided. "I've got a solid reputation in the community and local citizenship so it shouldn't be a problem."

"So that problem is potentially taken care of. Now there's one more thing we have to deal with," Bryce added, giving Jenny a warm smile.

~Here it comes,~ Jenny thought, smiling back.

"Jenny and I had a rather long discussion this afternoon,"

"While the rest of us were working," Murray chimed in.

"Hush," Edison told him. "This sounds important."

Bryce nodded.

"Thank you, Edison," he agreed. "It's extremely important. Anyhow, as a result of our rather extensive discussion, we decided that it would be a good idea if we got married."

"Bryce! That's wonderful!" Theora laughed. "Congratulations!"

"What about how outsiders will perceive your age difference?" Murray asked, concernedly.

"To use a phrase I learned from the Network mainframe, screw 'em," Bryce said, shocking Murray.

"That was in the mainframe?" Edison asked, surprised.

"One of Censor's triggers," Bryce replied.

"Are you planning on a big or small wedding?" Claire asked.

"We haven't really thought about that," Bryce admitted. "What do you think, Jenny? Shall we just have it with those who are here now or wait until their adoptive families arrive and have it then?"

"I'd like a big wedding," Jenny replied. "It'll be a lot of fun. Plus it will be a wonderful way for all the families to meet."

Bryce smiled.  
"A brilliant reply from a brilliant lady," he agreed.

"I'll take Jenny into town to find a gown," Sadie told them. "Edison, you Murray and Oliver can work the farm for me. And Oliver. Don't forget to call your boss and let him know you won't be in for a few days."

"Right, thanks!" Oliver said, after swallowing the last bite of his dinner.

Sadie and Theora cleared off the table, then brought in a mulberry pie and some cookies.

"Looks like it's pie night," Edison said, cheerfully.

"I know it's not a very popular kind," Sadie admitted. "So for those of you who don't want mulberry pie there's fresh chocolate chip cookies."

"You want to try some pie?" Claire asked her daughter "Or would you like a cookie?"

"Cookie," Charlotte replied.

Claire took a cookie and broke it up for her little girl.

Charlotte looked over at Jenny with a curious expression. "What's a webbing?"

"A wedding?" Jenny said. "Its a special party where two people who like each other a lot get to spend the rest of their lives together."

"That's nice," Charlotte decided, happily.


	21. A Past Revealed

In The Name of Lynch

-A Past Revealed-

Bryce and Jenny were in the barn the next morning tending to Mattie and her calf.

"You know, Bryce," Jenny pointed out, "I am still young enough for children thanks to modern advancements. Have you thought about whether you want to raise one of your own with me or...?"

"I have," Bryce admitted. "I wasn't sure if I should ask you about it, though. I didn't want to make you feel uncomfortable."

"I know how old you, dear Bryce," Jenny pointed out. "Your looks do not make me uncomfortable. Our love is all that matters to me. Yes, that sounds corny, but it's true."

"Well at least this is a farm," Bryce replied. "Perfect place for corn if you ask me."

The both of them laughed.

"So, the house that we're building to temporarily house your children's adoptive families. How big do you think it should be?"

"Well, Ai says her family won't move from New Tokyo because of their obligation to Zik Zak. So it's just her and Jack. But we should allow for a child or two just in case," Bryce decided. "Then there's Claire and Charlotte. Claire says that she has an uncle named Magnus who is the only member of her family who wants to come. But Marlene says her family is very close, so we can expect her mother Josephine, her father Terrence, her sisters, Lynda and Lydia, and her little brother Otto."

"People still use that name?" Bryce raised an eyebrow.

"Apparently," Jenny shrugged. "What about you, what do you want to name or first child?"

"A.T. Lynch," Bryce told her. "After Alan Turing."

"The guy who first hypothesized the test for artificial intelligence?"

Bryce nodded. "Yeah. Him."

"Not after one of your family?" Jenny asked, curious.

"No, I don't have any one person in my family I'd pick over another. So I figure it's best not to. Unless you want to have about ten kids. Then we can name them after my sisters, my aunts, and my cousins."

"What were their names?"

"One aunt is named Lisa. My cousins are name Sharon and Andrea, and Luke, last name Andros, in case you were wondering. Lisa my aunt on my mother's side. Then there is my father's sister, Rebecca and her son Charles. And finally there is my brother Richard and my twin sister Trace."

"Twin?"

"As brilliant as I. My parents couldn't afford to send us both to ACS. So I snuck copies of my assignments home to her so she could learn what I was learning. Eventually our teacher found out. I thought I'd get the boot, but he was sympathetic."

"Our teacher. Blank Bruno?"

Bryce nodded.

"He devised study and learning packets for my sister and mailed them to her every week. So she was able to learn what I was learning."

"That was kind of him," Jenny smiled. "Are we inviting him to the wedding? He is still alive."

"Sure, why not?" Bryce shrugged. "If I know Edison, it'll probably be broadcast around the globe anyhow."

"Do you want that?" Jenny raised an eyebrow.

"I've found that it's easier to just give Edison what he wants," Bryce told her.

"What about what we want, Bryce Lynch?" Jenny inquired. "It is our wedding after all."

Bryce smiled as she kissed him.

"How very true."

They headed back to the main part of the farm to help the others. Jenny went to help the other women brush and clean the cows while Bryce headed into the barn where the machines were to help Oliver and Edison who was also learning about these machines for the first time.

"Hold these," Oliver told Bryce, handing him a number of small parts.

Bryce took them and looked them over with curiosity. He wasn't used to being anything less than head of a department, but he found he didn't mind being what amounted to a stationary gofer. There was something almost liberating about it.

Bryce looked sadly at Edison for a moment, then shook his head and returned his attention to the machine parts he was holding.

"What's wrong?" Edison asked. "You and Jenny didn't break up I hope."

"No, the wedding is going as planned. She'll be going to get her dress with Sadie later today. Edison, I'm not returning to England after this is over."

"You and Jenny plan to stay here in Tassie, then?" Oliver inquired.

"Yes," Bryce told him. "In fact, I want to talk to you about where there is a good part of town to live in."

"Well, I think Aunt Sadie won't mind you staying here for a little while until you find a place," Oliver told him. "She's quite grateful that you were able to help save Mattie's calf."

Edison chuckled at the idea of tech savvy Bryce living on a simple farm. It sounded as crazy as German Shepherd living in a goldfish bowl.

"I guess I can do that for a while," Bryce replied.

Edison raised an eyebrow. "You on a farm? I can't see it. A week or so is one thing, but..."

"It's a good environment," Bryce shrugged, looking out the window at Claire who was showing Charlotte the cows. As Claire picked Charlotte up so she could pet the nearest animal, Bryce smiled. "See what I mean?"

Edison who couldn't went to the window to see for himself. "You're planning to have kids with Jenny then?"

"We hope to have at least one," Bryce admitted. "He or she will probably eventually find tech work in the city. But this will be a good place to raise a child. And experiencing both will give the kid a well-rounded life."

"It certainly gave me one," Oliver agreed.


	22. A Long Overdue Phone Call

In The Name of Lynch

-A Long Overdue Phone Call-

Trace Lynch got home from her job at the local computer repair shop that had once been the home of The Daily Mail and hung up her coat. It was cold in Kensington that early evening and she was shivering slightly despite the wool coat she'd been wearing.

"I think it might snow tonight, Bryce," she told her cat as she stroked the animal's fur.

This Bryce was a small female black angora cat, barely larger than the average kitten. She had a few toys that she loved to scatter around the room, jumping from one to another as took her fancy.

Trace smiled as the cat purred and gave a little meow in agreement.

After taking care of the cat's needs, Trace made herself a sandwich and was about to sit down when she heard her vu-phone tone. She went to answer it, leaving her roast beef sandwich on the table.

Seeing a golden opportunity Bryce the cat jumped up and swiped half of the sandwich, casting aside the bread and gobbling up the meat.

On the vu-phone screen, the Bryce who was not a cat was smiling cheerfully at his sister.

"Been a while. Hasn't it?"

"Bryce Lynch!" Trace exclaimed. "How dare you be alive and not call me for nearly thirty years!"

"I have an excuse for most of it," Bryce told her. "I was in a cryotube. In case you didn't notice that I am about twenty five years younger than you in appearance."

"I had noticed. Well, I forgive you for that part of it. So what's the occasion?"

"First off, are mom and dad still around?"

"Them and most of the rest of the family," Trace replied. "Luke and Andrea died about ten years ago."

"How?" Bryce asked. They hadn't been much older than he was.

"It was during an accident at a Scumball game. That was the one that caused the game to be abolished."

"I was so busy with all the stuff I'm doing right now that I honestly didn't even realize it wasn't being played anymore." Bryce admitted.

"What the hell have you been up to that you didn't notice the lack of Scumball games?" Trace asked.

"I'll tell you when you get here," Bryce said. His voice turning urgent he added, "You have to gather the rest of the family and bring them to Tasmania as quickly as you can!"

"Bryce I can't just..."

"The ratings war is about to get violent," Bryce interrupted his twin. "It's going to be very dangerous in your area in as little a time as two weeks. I want you all away from there before then. I'm at Eccleston Dairy Farm in Waddamana."'

"Farm, Bryce Lynch?" Trace asked, surprised. "Hmph. I never thought I hear those three words in one sentence. Okay, I'll call the rest of the family. I suppose we can be there by the weekend."

"That's great," Bryce told her. "I'll see you then. We can catch up on things when you get here." He was turning to say something to someone off screen when he heard his sister yell "Bryce! You little jerk!" in an amused tone.

"What did I do?"

"Not you. The cat. She stole half my sandwich."

"You named your cat after me?"

"I missed you." Trace explained. "Okay, I'll see this weekend if all goes well."

"I look forward to it," Bryce told her as he disconnected the call.

Trace picked up the discarded bread and tossed it in the trash.

"Well, Bryce. I hope you liked that half," she told her cat with a smile as she picked up the untouched half. "Because you're not getting this one."

Sneakily, Bryce the cat stood on her hind legs and gave a little tug of the meat that was sticking out the bottom of the sandwich and began to eat it as Trace went to eat the sandwich.

Trace took her bite tasted only bread. Looking at it and finding it empty, she looked down and saw her cat eating the meat. "Bryce! Hey, look. I need to eat, too!"

The cat looked up for a moment, then went back to eating the rest of the roast beef from the sandwich.


	23. Family Connection

In The Name of Lynch

-Family Connection-

After she got off the phone with her twin brother and tossed out the empty sandwich, Trace Lynch packed her suitcase. She was finally to be reunited with her brother, Bryce. It was something she had given up on over twenty years ago just after he'd started working at Network 23.

Her vu-phone rang again and she hit the connect button. The face of an woman in her early eighties appeared on the screen.

"You didn't call at your usual time, I was worried."

"Sorry, mum," Trace apologized. "I was talking with Bryce."

"Honestly, you and that cat."

"The other Bryce," Trace explained.

"Your brother called?" Marian Lynch asked, rather surprised.

"He's been in cryo the last quarter century." Trace told her. "Still looks like a bloody teenager."

"Really! Do you have to swear? Wherever do you get all that from?"

"You'd swear, too, if you saw him. And get this, he's in bleedin' Tassie."

"What the hell is he doing in Tasmania?" a male voice asked from off screen.

"And that's where I get it from," Trace said with a laugh.

Her father appeared on screen. "What'd Bryce wanted?"

"He sounded urgent. Said he wants the family to meet him in Tasmania. He said he'd explain all the details when we arrived. So, what's the verdict? Do we go?"

"Definitely," her parents replied in unison.

Once they had hung up their end of the vu-phone Marian and Robin Lynch went to their respective dressers and began to pack. As they were filling their suitcases, Robin found a little photograph he had taken of the twins long ago. It had been the Christmas following their third birthday. In it, Trace was bopping Bryce on the head with her new doll. Smiling, he packed the photo. It was, after all, a father's duty to playfully embarrass his son.

Of course his son had just the right ammunition to get him back. The fact that he and his wife just happened to share the same name as England's best known outlaw and his lady-love had not been missed by anyone. And they'd always enjoyed some good-natured ribbing about it at work. Especially when they'd announced their engagement. When they'd announced they were expecting twins, one coworker had even suggested calling them Will and Scarlet, just to keep the theme going. Of course Marian had said no and had named them Bryce and Trace instead.

Calling Trace back for a moment, Robin got the number of the vu-phone at Eccleston Dairy Farm. Then, after thanking her and disconnecting, he dialed the number.


	24. Hobart International Arrivals

Hobart International Arrivals

By ElegantButler

In The Name of Lynch

-Hobart International Arrivals-

Hobart International Airport was teeming with tourists and returning locals when Trace Lynch stepped off the plane along with her brother Richard who had brought along his twin sons, Eric and Todd, and her mother and father Marian and Robin.

Some wise guy who been sitting across the aisle from them on the plane called to them "Long live King Richard!"

Richard rolled his eyes while Eric and Todd attempted to impersonate trumpet fanfare only to burst out laughing at the end of the first high note.

Eric and Todd Lynch had been mischief-makers ever since they were old enough to have an allowance and had accidentally wandered into the Zik Zak Know Joke shop by accident. They'd meant to go into the similarly named record shop called Zik Zak Know Juke. They had realized their mistake at once. But as soon as they had seen their first novelty item, a plastic ice cube with a realistic and long fake finger sticking out, they were hooked. Finding out that it was a floating straw ('GROSS OUT YOUR FRIENDS!' the packing read out proudly), the twins decided to buy it instead of the new Stinkweeds record they'd planned to buy.

"Okay, you two princes. Anymore from you and it'll be straight to the dungeons."

"Dairy farms don't have dungeons," Todd laughed.

"Dairy farm?" the wise guy raised an eyebrow. "Not Eccleston Farms by any chance?"

"Indeed," Richard replied. "Richard Lynch. My brother Bryce arranged this gathering."

He offered his hand, politely, with a grin.

"Never met him," the other guy shrugged and shook Richard's hand. "Magnus Ballantyne. I'm here with my sister Mariel."

"She the woman who got on the plane with you and then sat ten rows back?"

"Yep. Can you blame her? You heard the way I snore."

"And so did I," Mariel said as she joined them, pulling two long-handled suitcases behind her, each topped with a smaller suitcase. She peered closely at her brother. "Hm. Seems intact. I was thinking your arms might've come off on the plane."

"Todd, Eric, help your aunt Trace and your grandparents get their luggage. I'm going to give the Ballantynes a hand."

"You don't have to do that," Mariel told him.

"No, but I think that helping someone out is a great way to get to know someone and maybe even make a friend."

"That is definitely a philosophy I can agree with," Magnus smiled. He took one pull-handle while Richard took the other.

Relieved to no longer have to hold them, Mariel picked up the two small suitcases.

"Mariel," Magnus introduced, "King Richard."

"Richard Lynch actually," Richard laughed. "I'd shake hands, but..."

"Richie!" a woman called.

Richard Lynch turned and smiled. "Pamela Lynch," he said. "So you're here on this little adventure, too?"

"Yup. Dad couldn't make it. He says she has to stay working at the hospital if the war that Bryce is talking about happens. So she sent me, and Sharon. Aunt Andrea said she wanted to stay behind Uncle Luke in case anything happened to him."

"Well, this is getting to be a family reunion, isn't it?" A woman with greying blond hair asked.

"Hi, Becky," Richard grinned.

"Eccleston Farm?" a man in a bus driver's cap asked nearby. "Anyone for Eccleston Farm?"

The newly gathered group raised their hands. "Plus two more," Richard said. "Trace, go fetch Mum and Dad. I think they went to the gift shop. Tell them our ride is here."

A short while later, they were all on the bus and heading for Eccleston Farm.


	25. Maternal Meltdown

In The Name of Lynch

-Maternal Meltdown-

It was around seven in the evening when the bus that Bryce had hired arrived at Eccleston Farm.

The driver helped the older members of the family to disembark, then helped the younger members gather up the suitcases and carry them to the porch.

"Thanks, Harold," Bryce said, stepping out onto the porch and handing the driver a generous tip. "I'll take it from here,"

"Who are you?" Eric asked.

"Yeah, are you the help?" Todd inquired.

"Yes, my lords," Bryce replied, bowing sarcastically. "Because sixteen-year-old butlers are very common on the farms of Tasmania. Actually, I'm Bryce."

Todd grimaced in pain and looked utterly shocked at the same time, having dropped the bag he was carrying on his foot.

Bryce picked up the bag and noted that it wasn't very heavy.

"You'll bruise. You'll live." he told his nephew.

"So, how come you're so young?" Eric asked.

"Cryotube," Bryce said, leaving it at that. "So, what is it you two do?"

"Our dad tells us to stay out of trouble, but we don't think that's very fun," Eric admitted.

"So we like to modify stuff from the Know Jokes shop."

"Good," Bryce smiled. "We can use your skills. Maybe you can help me modify a transmitter."

"Are we going to Zip a network?" Todd asked, excitedly.

Murray who'd come out onto the porch glared a warning in their direction. "Zipping is still illegal you know."

"I find it odd that interrupting somebody's shopping is illegal despite store employees doing it all the time, while war itself is not even though murder is." Bryce replied. "And no we are not going to Zip a network. That would be unfair to the viewers of that network and it's employees."

Murray was halfway through a sigh of relief when Bryce cheerfully announced.

"We're going to Zip all of them simultaneously. We want to get the message out to everyone everywhere at the same time. And we want to make sure that no single network is blamed or can take credit."

"And of course no one would ever blame Network 23 when Max shows up," Murray argued.

Bryce put his face in his hands for a moment.

"Slight oversight there," he admitted. "Fine. We'll just use someone else to send the message."

"We can do it," Todd said.

"No, your brother is practically my twin. But we can use the rest of the family. At least the ones who are of age."

"You didn't brings us all here to talk about television, did you?" Robin asked his son. "We could've done that at home, Bryce."

"True, and no I didn't," Bryce admitted. "I actually brought you here to get you away from the ratings war that's about to erupt."

"A ratings war isn't the same as a real-"

"This one is," Bryce said, interrupting his mother.

Murray glared at him for his rudeness, which Bryce ignored.

"I've detected a pattern of street violence that has been following the ratings tides at Network 23, Network 66, World One, and believe it or not Breakthru TV."

"And Pornoviz I'll bet," Richard grumbled.

"As if I'd know anything about that network," Bryce shrugged.

"Four kids and still a virgin," Trace shook her head.

"Someone must've touched him a little for the harvest," Richard pointed out.

"Nope," Jenny told them. "It was an abdominal harvest. A needle extracting what was needed from the vas. My Bryce is still as pure as when he was born."

"Your Bryce?" Richard asked. "Okay, little brother, out with it."

"Well, since those who have already been here from the start know at this point. Jenny and I are engaged."

"That's crazy!" Marian exploded. "Bryce you have the looks and mind of a teenager!"

"The looks you're right about," Bryce argued. "But not my mind. It's been linked to the Network 23 mainframe for the p-"

"And that explains why you've become so stupid," Marian told her son.

"I- " Bryce faltered. Several words flitted across his mind at that statement, all very unflattering. A few he was sure would have gotten most popular shows cancelled in a heartbeat. "Never mind. There's really no point in trying to explain to anyone as closed-minded as you."

"Just don't bother asking me to the wedding," Marian said, storming off toward the bridge, rather effectively despite her age.

"Where the hell are you going, mother?" Bryce demanded. "You can't walk to town at your age at this time of night."

Marian turned, marched back, and slapped Bryce hard across the face.

"One, if you're planning on getting married I suggest you grow up. Two, don't you tell me what I can and can't do. I don't put up with it from your father, and I won't put up with it from you. Now, I'm going into town and I will stay at the nearest inn. And I don't want to hear from you until you break up with that cradle robber you've hooked up with."

"Then I guess my mother is dead," Bryce replied coldly as he went into the house.

"So is my younger son," Marian hissed as she resumed the walk in the direction of the bridge.


	26. A Tragic Turn

In The Name of Lynch

-A Tragic Turn-

Bryce hardly slept that night. In the barn with Murray, he watched Mattie tend to her calf. As the cow doted lovingly on the daughter that Bryce himself had helped deliver, tears ran down Bryce's face.

"Maybe you should've explained things to your mother," Murray told him. "It's not as if she knew who Jenny was. You never did contact her at ACS."

"If she had simply said that she was concerned about me, I might've considered that," Bryce told him. "But she just yelled and screamed at me as if I were a child."

"We are children to our parents no matter how old we get. The fact that you still look sixteen or seventeen doesn't help. But that can't be helped."

Bryce wiped away his tears. "I supposed you're right," he said. "But I can't believe she didn't even give Jenny a chance. Though maybe I should call it off considering what I might have to do."

"What do you mean? You're not going back into cryo!"

"No," Bryce shook his head. "But I may have to reattach myself to the computer in order to..."

"Nonsense!" Murray told him. "We've got Max for that!"

"We can't use him! Any hint of Max would bias public opinion either for or against Network 23."

"Look," Murray told Bryce. "It's late. You're upset. Get some sleep. I'm sure you'll think more clearly on it in the morning."

Murray rolled over and went to sleep.

But Bryce still could not. He decided to head over to the pond to see if he could relax there. It was the place where he and Jenny had become engaged after all. It had happy memories for him, and he hoped those happy memories would give him some peace.

Watching the moon sparkle in its surface, he walked around it, humming tunelessly to himself as he worked out what he should do about his mother and Jenny. He wanted them to like each other. And he wanted his mother to see what a wonderful lady Jenny was. As he thought these things to himself, he did not notice the slimy area and fell into the pond with a loud splash.

Bryce had grown up in the city, and they did not have swimming lessons at ACS. He floundered in the water, trying to get back to the shore. But the night's darkness made it nearly impossible for him tell which shore was closest. And the water was bitter cold since the sun had been down about four hours at this point, adding freezing pain to the panic Bryce was starting to feel. He tried to calm himself by thinking of how silly it was that people should use the word 'flounder' to mean flailing in the water when flounders themselves were pretty darn good swimmers.

By some miracle, he reached the edge. But it was the slimy edge and he could not pull himself up. He tried several times, each more strenuous than the last as his limbs grew stiffer with pain until he had to admit that he was defeated.

As his consciousness faded for the last time, he remembered a remark he'd made long ago about challenging God. A faint smile formed on his lips as he whispered what he was certain would be his final words.

"Checkmate. You win."


	27. In the Lateness of the Hour

In The Name of Lynch

-In the Lateness of the Hour-

Everyone had heard the splash. But it had been Oliver, Jenny, and Robin who had gotten up first to

check and see what had made the noise.

Each of them had their own reason for checking.

Robin had gone because he was worried now that Marian hadn't come back or called him. He'd

figured before that she would call him in the morning when she came to her senses. Now he wondered if she had gotten lost in the dark trying to return to the farm in the middle of the night.

Oliver had gone because he knew how dangerous the pond could be from past experience.

Jenny had gone because she knew that Bryce would go there if he was upset to try and relax. The moon would be pretty on the water. But it was also be dangerous. The two of them had already fallen in once. When she heard the splash, it brought that little incident back to mind. Then it had been safer and even funny. It wasn't funny now.

By the time Robin and Oliver had arrived, Jenny was lying on her stomach near the edge of the water. Bryce was in the deep pond, trying to climb out, but unable to attain a firm grip on the slimy mud Not wanting to fall in herself, Jenny had lain on her stomach and grasped Bryce's wrist with one hand. Then she had grabbed his shirt just below the collar, pulling him out of the freezing water just after he'd gone under.

"Get help," Oliver shouted to Robin as he knelt beside Jenny and helped her to pull Bryce out of the water.

Bryce was unconscious as they pulled him out of the water. And was still out of it when Edison and Murray arrived, arguing as they walked.

"I do need some sleep, Edison," Murray was complaining. "I can't stay up all night babysitting. Especially when the person in question is not a baby."

"You still knew he was upset," Edison exclaimed as they arrived.

"He didn't try to kill himself, Edison," Robin said. "My son would never do that. He simply fell in. Now lend a hand."

Edison and Murray remained on solid ground just behind the slimy area and grabbed onto Jenny and Oliver. With a hard tug, they collectively managed to pull Bryce out of the pond.

Despite his age, Edison picked up Bryce and ran with him back to the farmhouse. The others followed, a little more slowly, but still at a rapid pace.

The rest of the house was awakened by Edison practically knocking the front door off its hinges as he ran inside and into the guest room where he was sleeping that night.

"Jenny," he said, "get me some dry clothes for Bryce. Oliver, get a towel for me to dry him off with."

Without waiting, Edison carefully positioned Bryce's arms above his head and pulled off the t-shirt he had been sleeping in. He tossed the soaking wet garment on the floor in the corner as Oliver and Jenny returned with the things he had asked for.

Jenny actually growled at Edison when he started unbuttoning Bryce's dripping jeans, indicating that she would not put up with anyone seeing Bryce completely nude other than herself.

"He stays pure," she snapped, casting a tender gaze at Bryce.


	28. Chapter 28

In The Name of Lynch

-Chapter 13: Adjusting to Fatherhood-

Waiting at the airport terminal window for the flight to Hobart International Airport, Bryce watched the other flights take off and land.

His young mind had been very busy with many things over the past twenty five or so years, assisting the Network 23 mainframe. And he had learned many things that he had never been privy to before regarding the Network.

But none of that had prepared him for the reality of what he was facing now.

He was a father.

As his and Jenny's plane landed, he let that fact sink in. His mind had been a part of the discussions regarding the use of his DNA for just such a purpose. But at the time, it had been a part of the Cat9 program. And the most that had been expected of him at the time was a few medical records if they became necessary.

Now events had forced him to come out of stasis. And in his current state, he could no longer simply sit back and not take an interest in his children. Even if they were someone else's now from a legal standpoint, he felt a sense of protectiveness toward them. The same, in a way, that he'd felt toward Max when Grossberg had demanded that Max be erased. And yet, it wasn't the same. It seemed stronger.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and tried to remember his parents. He wondered if they'd been just as protective of him. He supposed they had. His mother had wanted him to call her once a week when he'd been away at school. But he made his schedule so tight with the things he'd thought were important to his grades and studies that he had never put aside time for it. He regretted that now. He wondered if his mother might still be alive or where she might be located. His father was a different matter altogether. Bryce respected the man, but in all honesty it could be suggested that he picked up his workaholic habits from him. So the two hadn't spoken much in Bryce's entire lifetime. Though Bryce would guess that if his father did take enough time away from work to say two words about him they'd be "I'm proud".

Bryce wondered how proud his father would be of him today. He was a teen father. That was something his parents had frowned upon when he was growing up. They'd never directly approached him on the subject of biological responsibility, of course. He had merely heard them making disparaging remarks about teen parents while watching a TV show that had been focused on the subject just before dinner one night.

Of course, Bryce had been in cryostasis for over two decades, so he was really somewhere in his late forties or early fifties. But that was only on a chronological level. The truth was that even his own mind refused to see himself as anything other than just seventeen.

He wondered if he would have to recalibrate his birthday now that he thought of it. The day he'd gone under had been the last day of his sixteenth year. His body had been biologically scheduled to become seventeen the following day. If that was true, was today now his birthday since his biological clock had been stopped while he was frozen and was restarted when he'd been thawed.

A tug on his coat pulled him from his thoughts.

"Plane's ready," Jenny told him.

"Okay," he replied, following her down the ramp and into the coach section of the plane.

"You seemed distracted," Jenny said as she adjusted her seatbelt.

"Just thinking about how different my life has suddenly become," Bryce told her. "I am a teen father. I have four children, two of whom haven't been found yet."

"There's still one thing that's the same about you," Jenny reassured him.

Bryce raised an eyebrow.

Jenny smiled. "You're still unique." she told him.


	29. Chapter 29

In The Name of Lynch

-A Day of Chores Part 1-

Bryce was feeling far better by that afternoon. He joined the rest of the family for chores, spending a bit of time nursing Mattie's calf so she could have a break.

The little calf nudged him happily, as if it somehow knew the important roll Bryce had played at its birth.

Marian watched him from the barn door along with Jenny for several minutes. Then, Bryce, feeling a bit mischievous, decided to try a little ventriloquism.

"Either come in or shut the door, ladies," he said, via the nearest cow. "We don't live in... oh, never mind."

"You can add ventriloquist to the list of things that you are not, Bryce Lynch," Marian told her son. "Your Jenny told me all about the ol' Doctor bit. Time Lord indeed."

"So, you two are talking now? Bryce looked at them with a smile on his face.

"I realized how foolish I was when I almost lost you, son," Marian told Bryce. "Bryce, I am so sorry. Jenny really is a remarkable woman. She risked her life to save you when I was too much of a coward. Of all the people there, I had the greatest reason to save you, and I was the one that just went all panicky."

"You were a mother who was afraid for her son," Jenny said. "There is no shame in that. The fact that not everyone has the ability to be a hero is what makes those who are all the more special to us."

"Bryce," Oliver said as he joined the ladies at the door, "Edison and I could use a hand with the town deliveries. Since you expressed an interest in moving here, why don't you come along. It'll be a great way to meet your future neighbors."

"Alright," Bryce agreed," he motioned to Jenny who took over the task of feeding the calf, then joined Edison and Oliver.

Oliver backed the delivery truck up to the doors of the barn where the refrigeration unit was kept. Then, he got out, opened the doors, and helped Bryce and Edison load the back of it.

Despite his age, Edison was pretty strong, and the three of them quickly filled up the truck with the freshly processed and bottled milk.

Once that was done, the trio got into the front of the truck and headed into town.

While Bryce was in town, Jenny and Marian joined Marlene out in the pasture where she was scattering the afternoon hay.

"We never think of how much work goes into what goes on our plates," Marlene remarked. "All we think about is the end product."

"So true," Marian agreed as she helped with the scattering. "So very true. I'm just glad we're scattering hay and not ashes. That was a real close call last night. I came so close to losing my son."

Marian stopped what she was doing and sat down heavily on a firm bale of hay.

Jenny sat beside her and put an arm around her. "The important thing is that Bryce is all right now. That's all that matters to him and I. Whatever was said is in the past. The only words that matter that you said to him between then and now were when you said you loved him and when you told us you were sorry."

"You are going to make a wonderful daughter-in-law," Marian told her.


	30. Chapter 30

In The Name of Lynch

-A Day of Chores Part 2-

As Oliver, Bryce, and Edison drove through the residential section into town, they saw that one of the For Sale signs was being covered up with a SOLD marker.

"Looks like someone bought the old Robertson place," Oliver said, also noticing. "I was beginning to think that place would never sell."

"Looks nice enough," Bryce said, "I wonder who bought it,"

"I think I can guess," Edison said. "Little hint, who haven't we seen in a few days?"

"My oldest daughter," Bryce realized. "I thought something wasn't quite right. I wonder why she just took off like that."

"With her husband?" Edison smirked at him. "You'll understand when you get married."

"First stop," Oliver called out to them.

He pulled the truck up to the rear entryway of the town supermarket and put the vehicle in park to keep the refrigeration unit in the back going. Once that was done, he opened the back doors of the truck.

Accompanied by Edison and Bryce, he unloaded ten crates and brought them inside.

"Morning, Ollie," the day manager greeted him cheerful, "New help I see?"

"Just temporary, Wally," Oliver replied. "This is my biological father Bryce Lynch, and his best friend Edison."

"Nice to meet you, Bryce," Wally said, understandably offering a hand to Edison.

"Other way 'round, Walls," Oliver explained.

"But he can't be your dad, Ollie! He's what sixteen? Seventeen at the most?"

"I get that a lot," Bryce told him. "I'm about fifty one or so."

"Nah! You can't be fifty one. You don't even look twenty one."

"Cyrogenics," Bryce explained.

"Well, that explains how. But not why," Wally said, cautiously.

"Because," Bryce explained, returning to his duty of helping to stock the shelves. "I got really sick when I really was sixteen. Whatever it was is gone now, so you needn't concern youself about it. Anyhow..."

Wally was looking at Bryce very closely now.

"You related to a girl who likes to wear her hair all Japanese style?" He asked.

"Yes," Bryce replied. "You've seen her?"

"She and her... husband?"

Bryce nodded in confirmation.

"They bought the old Robertson place," Wally explained. "Came in about an hour ago to buy supplies."

"I'm glad," Bryce admitted.

"That's a great job," Sadie praised as little Charlotte helped her mother Claire to crimp the edges of the apple pie. "That's right. Little pinches all around."

Charlotte smiled as her little fingers made 'little pinches' on the edge of the pie.

Finally, when it was done, Sadie smiled. "Now we pop it in the oven and when it's done we'll put it on the windowsill to cool."

"That smells good," Marlene complimented when she, Marian, and Jenny walked into the kitchen. "Hay's baled, and the outside chores are done. So we came to see what we can work on indoors."

"Set the table," Sadie instructed. "Then you can take an hour break."

"Thank you," Marian said, heading for the cabinet.

"Dear, you can break now," Sadie smiled. "We old folk need an extra hour every now and then. And you've been working hard ever since you came. What did you do for a living?"

Marian smiled. "Middle management."


	31. Chapter 31

In The Name of Lynch

-A Simple Day of Love-

On Thursday, Theora and Marlene took Jenny into town to find a wedding dress.

After several trips to a few boutiques, Theora suggested trying a consignment shop for laughs. It was there that Jenny finally found the gown she loved. It was a beautiful sleeveless satin and lace gown with a simple veil that matched it rather well.

"Are you sure," Marlene asked.

"Yes," Jenny said, bouncing on her feet, despite her age. She almost seemed as young as Bryce looked at that moment. "Oh, you two had better pick out something as well, as you're my bridesmaids."

"We've got time," Theora reminded her.

"Not any more you don't," Jenny corrected her. "Bryce and I have decided to get married tomorrow."

That sent Marlene and Theora off on a wild search throughout the store, culminating in the discovery of two mint pink dresses, one with a shoulder sash, the other without.

With these things purchased, they returned to the farm and joined the others with the chores.

The day passed as it always does at Eccleston Dairy Farm when there are no deliveries to be made. At nightfall, the only two left awake were Jenny and Bryce.

"I can't wait until tomorrow," Bryce said, sounding a bit like a child who's been told that there will be a carnival in town the next day. "It's going to be so wonderful."

"I'm glad you're happy," Jenny smiled. "I am, too. We'd better get some sleep."

Bryce headed out to the barn where Murray was already asleep while Jenny turned in to the room in the attic where she was sleeping.

Jenny woke the next morning and got into her wedding gown. She took breakfast in her room to stay hidden until the wedding, a move which Bryce respected, though he was anxious to see her.

While Bryce chatted with Edison, who'd agreed to be Best Man, the others put together a simple chapel in the living room as it was a little cold and rain was expected.

Finally, the moment came. There was no music to be played, but a simple open window allowed the sounds of birds to be heard and that was good enough. Rosellas, wrens, thornbills and honeyeaters seemed to know a wedding was going on and were determined to sing for the bride as though she were a fairytale princess.

Jenny smiled at this thought as she quietly made her way down the spiral staircase accompanied by Theora and Marlene. When they got to the bottom of the stairs and could finally be seen, Bryce was so entranced that he nearly fell over in a faint.

"Easy, there," Edison whispered.

"I'm okay," Bryce told Vanna, seeing her concerned look.

When Jenny had reached Bryce's side, they both looked up at Vanna who began the ceremony.

"In the olden days," Vanna said, "a tale was once woven of a beautiful princess who slept a hundred years and who upon awakening found true love. In this case it is the young prince who has slept, and while it was not for a hundred years, he has found love at the end of his long slumber."

Bryce blushed which made Jenny smile.

"And so we now assemble in the presence of that love and those who have chosen to bind their hearts to it: Bryce Lynch and Jenny Wilcox. And so, in the presence of family and friends, Bryce Lynch, I ask you, do you take Jenny Wilcox as your wife?"

"I do," Bryce said.

"And in the presence of family and friends, Jenny Wilcox, I ask you, do you take Bryce Lynch as your husband?"

"I do," Jenny said.

"Then, by the power vested in my by the word of God and by Network 23, I pronounce you man and wife. you may kiss the bride."

Bryce lifted Jenny's veil and shyly kissed her.


	32. Chapter 32

In The Name of Lynch

-Morning Glory, Mourning Grief-

Bryce yawned sleepily and turned over in bed, snuggling up to his wife. The night before had been very interesting and he felt himself smile at the sound of her gently beating heart.

"You okay this morning?" Jenny asked, warmly.

"Mm hm," Bryce murmured, affectionately.

"Why were you crying last night after we made love?"

"To be honest, I wasn't expecting ... well... " Bryce blushed.

"You're telling me you didn't learn anything about sex while you were linked to the Network 23 computer?"

"There was no reason to learn about it, so no," Bryce admitted.

"I'm sorry if I frightened you," Jenny told him.

"You didn't," Bryce admitted. "I frightened me in a way."

"I guess having your body go through what basically feels like a heart attack can be a bit unnerving if you're not prepared for it." Jenny kissed Bryce, tenderly, frowning as he sat up.

"We should probably join the others for work or they'll all start gossiping if they suspect..."

"Bryce Lynch, get back here," Jenny told him with a laugh. "This is our first morning as a couple. I promise you they all know exactly what we were up to last night."

"Oh, God," Bryce blushed a pretty shade of pink. "How do I face Edison Carter now?"

"Same as the rest of the world," Jenny smiled. "With a guilty conscience."

Out at the milking barn, Vanna and Theora helped Sadie lead the cows out to the pasture. They were not smiling. Earlier that morning, they'd learned some news that they were sure would be upsetting to Bryce.

Bryce was too restless to sleep any longer and two self-conscious for making love with Jenny when everyone else was awake and knew exactly what was going on.

He got up and got dressed, then headed out to see what chores were being done and required help.

His father was sitting in the kitchen having a cup of coffee while Murray sat with him. "It's not easy losing someone you love," he said, neither of them noticing Bryce who poured himself a cup of coffee.

Bryce had once eschewed the stuff, recalling his teacher telling him that 'caffeine kills concentration'. But he figured that after last night's discovery about a whole new (to him anyhow) level of interpersonal interaction, his concentration was straight out the window anyhow.

"At least Marian died in her sleep," Robin sighed. "She didn't suffer the way her mother had."

Bryce's cup slipped from his fingers and shattered on the floor.

"Mom?" he asked weakly.

"Bryce!" Robin exclaimed.

Bryce ran from the room, returning to the one that he and his wife shared.

"Bryce what's wrong?"

Bryce said nothing, simply burying his face in Jenny's shoulder and sobbing.


	33. Chapter 33

In The Name of Lynch

-Continuing-

Robin Lynch found his son out by the lake where he had nearly drowned. He was grateful that his son was neither alone nor in danger. When he'd learned that Bryce had gone to the lake after hearing of his mother's death, he had been rather alarmed.

Bryce and Jenny were on the safe side, sitting on the dock and watching a family of wattlebirds that were nesting in a nearby Eucalyptus tree.

"I wasted so much time," Bryce told his wife. "I spent so many years frozen in that stupid capsule. But even worse, I wasted time not seeing them when I was awake at ACS and Network 23. Why didn't I call her then? Why?"

"Man was born to second guess himself," Jenny said, softly. "It will forever be our lot in life. And you know as well as I that if you hadn't gone into cryostasis you would have died when you really were seventeen."

"Jenny..."

"Bryce, look at those birds." Robin heard Jenny tell his son, "Do you hear how they sing when there are so few in their nests? How they're still happy even though their older sons and daughters, brothers and sisters have long since flown?"

"Yes, Jen, but I..."

"I think they're not happy _in spite of_ the fact that the others have left the nest. I think they're happy because of it. Because of the fact that their loved ones have made nests of their own. They know that there will be children. And yes, Bryce, we can have children. The women of my family have always been late entering the change. My grandmother had my Aunt Linda when she was fifty-four years old."

"I wouldn't even know where to start," Bryce confessed.

Robin rolled his eyes at this and stifled a chuckle.

"We may have started last night," Jenny admitted.

"So that's how.." Bryce considered this for a moment.

"Well, how did you think?"

"Cloning," Bryce explained.

"Cloning was made illegal in 2003, Bryce," Jenny said.

"I thought that was because of the population overbalance," Bryce shrugged.

"Well, Mister Oh-So-Smart Seventeen-Year-Old-For-Twenty-Five-Years," Robin said, in a tone that was both amused and sad at the same time, "just where did you think you came from?"

Bryce considered every bit of science fact and fiction he could think of. Anything that could save him from the embarrassment of admitting he'd been a bit foolish. Finally he said, brightly, "Arisia?"

"Arisia," Jenny groaned. She knew Bryce was avoiding talking about his mother's passing. "Really? Okay... this is getting ridiculous. What in the name of Network television made you think you were an Arisian?"

"My good looks, luck, and extraordinary intelligence?"

"You forgot your excessive ego," Robin said, smirking, though he was still suffering inside.

Robin didn't want his son upset in a place where he could easily take his own life. He wasn't sure how Bryce would handle the pain. The discoveries of the lighter emotions of love and lust had been happy surprises. But Bryce had never dealt with emotional pain before. He was grateful for Jenny's method of distracting Bryce from the pain of his mother's death. It was something they would have to talk about, father and son, but not in this place.

"Indeed," Jenny said. "Okay, Bryce. Raise your dominant hand."

"Yeah, yeah..." Bryce said.

"Do you see a Lens on it?"

"Well... not really..."

"Right. You're not an Arisian. Not a Lensman of any kind, not the Doctor, and since I might as well nip this line of thought in the bud before it forms and gets out of hand, although your ego and intelligence practically do need two heads, you are also, thank God, NOT ZAPHOD BEEBLEBROX!"

"Are you sure about that last one?" Bryce joked. "we both had parrot cages and..."

"...and you used yours to put a parrot in, not to hide a second head."

"Why am I even entertaining a silly conversation like this?" Bryce asked nobody in particular in a calm and reflective tone of voice.

"Son," Robin said, amusedly to Bryce. "I think perhaps I should've warned you that being in love will make you do and say the silliest things ever. In fact only one thing will make you sound more ridiculous than being a husband."

"What's that, then?" Bryce inquired.

"You'll find out," Robin said.


	34. Chapter 34

In The Name of Lynch

-Choices-

Robin Lynch found Bryce out at the barn helping Sadie with some of the chores.

"I know you sent for your cryer-thingamy," he told him. "And I think I know why."

"I might have to relink my mind to the system," Bryce told him. "If all else fails, I will have to go in and link the connections myself,"

"How long will you have before..."

"Network security ICE is burn-cold," Bryce explained.

"You don't expect to survive is what you're saying," Sadie bopped him over the head with her work gloves "You irresponsible coward!"

"I..."

"Truth is, you're afraid of what might be coming about nine months down the road, so you're dodging out."

"I'd never do that to Jenny!"

"Then why risk your life?" Vanna joined in, "What makes you think you're the only one. Use Max. He's already in."

"Too recognizable."

"Well, put a wig on him . Make him Minx Headlight or something... I don't know..."

"Minx Headlight?" Edison said from the door. "I heard you guys picking on my best pal. What gives?"

"Bryce wants to sacrifice himself for the cause," Sadie explained. "I think he's just afraid of becoming a dad someday."

"I'm already a dad. Hello. This is my family reunion. Remember Ai? And Oliver? And Marlene? And..."

"I haven't forgotten," Sadie told him. "But those were easy for you. You were a freezer pop when they were being colicky or having their diapers changed or being two-year-old terrors. This one, if there is one, you're going to have to help out with. And that scares you."

"You're right, I am scared. But not of being a father," Bryce stepped outside, Sadie and Edison following.

"So what are you afraid of?"

"I'm afraid of making my child sad some day," Bryce explained. "If I let him or her get attached to me..."

"You just reminded us of the children you already have," Edison told him. "Don't you think they'll be sad if you sacrificed yourself like that?"

"I've already sent for the cryostasis unit. I can't cancel it. It's already en route."

"Then give it to me, son," Robin suggested. "Bryce, I'm not staying. Before your mom passed, I promised her I'd make sure she got back to Guildford. We bought open-ended round trip tickets since we expected to go home anyhow. I plan on coming back. But it might not be for a little while. I have to get the house in order. Now that Marian is gone..."

"What about the family she has here? You're going to take her away without letting us have a proper funeral for her? We can't all go to Guildford. It's too dangerous. You shouldn't even be going!"

"Just a thought, Bryce," Vanna suggested. "I can do a simple funerary service here in which burial can be symbolized by placing your mother's body into the cryostasis unit."

"I guess that'd be acceptable if dad doesn't mind," Bryce decided.

"It's a good idea," Robin agreed after a bit of consideration.

Jenny came running up and threw her arms around Bryce.

"Bryce! Is it true! Please say it isn't! Please say you're not going to go back into that horrible box!"

"I was..."

Jenny glared at him in interruption.

"... but I changed my mind." Bryce said, putting his arms around her.


End file.
